Scorpia

They crossed the courtyard and went through an archway into a vast room with a multicoloured mosaic floor, ornate windows, pillars and intricate wooden angels carved into the walls. This might once have been a place of worship; now it was used as a refectory and meeting place, with long tables, modern sofas and a hatch leading into a kitchen beyond. The ceiling was domed and carried the faint remnants of a fresco. There had been angels here too but they had long ago faded.

There was a door on the far side. Nile went over to it and knocked.

“Entrez!” The voice, speaking French, was friendly.

They went into a tall, octagonal room. Books lined five of the eight walls. The ceiling, painted blue with silver stars, was at least twenty metres high. There was a ladder on wheels reaching up to the top shelves. Two windows looked out onto more woodland but much of the light was blocked out by leaves, and an iron chandelier with about a dozen electric bulbs hung down on a heavy chain. The centre of the room was taken up by a solid-looking desk with two antique chairs in front of it and one behind. This third chair was occupied by a small, plump man in a suit and waistcoat. He was working at a laptop computer, his stubby fingers typing at great speed. He was peering at the screen through gold-rimmed glasses. He had a neat black beard that tapered to a point under his chin. The rest of his hair was grey.

“Alex Rider! Please … come in.” The man looked up from his computer with obvious pleasure. “I would have recognized you at once. I knew your father very well and you look just like him.” Apart from a slight French accent, his English was perfect. “My name is Oliver d’Arc. I am, you might say, the principal of this establishment—the head teacher, perhaps. I was just looking at your personal details on the Internet.” Alex sat down on one of the antique chairs. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d be posted on the Internet,” he commented.

“It depends which search engine you use.” D’Arc gave Alex a sly smile. “I know Mrs Rothman told you that your father was an instructor here. I worked with him and he was a good friend to me, but I never dreamt that I would one day meet his son. And it is Nile who brings you here. Nile graduated from here a few years ago. He was a brilliant student—the number two in his class.”

Alex glanced at Nile and for the first time saw a flicker of annoyance cross the man’s face. He remembered what Mrs Rothman had said … something about Nile having a weakness … and he wondered what it was that had prevented him becoming number one.

“Are you thirsty after your journey?” d’Arc asked. “Can I get you anything? A sirop de grenadine, perhaps?” Alex started. The red fruit juice was his favourite drink when he was in France. Had d’Arc got that off the Internet too?

“It was what your father always drank,” d’Arc explained, reading his thoughts.

“I’m all right, thank you.”

“Then let me tell you the programme. Nile will introduce you to the other students who are here at Malagosto.

There are never more than fifteen and at the moment there are only eleven. Nine men and two women. You will join in with them and over the next few days we will examine your progress. Eventually, if I consider you have the ability to become part of Scorpia, I will write a report and your real training will begin. But I have no doubts, Alex. You are very young, only fourteen. But you are John Rider’s son and he was the very best.”

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Alex said.

“Please. Go ahead.” D’Arc sat back, beaming.

“I want to join Scorpia. I want to be part of what you do. But you might as well know now that I don’t think I could kill anybody. I told Mrs Rothman and she didn’t believe me. She said I’d only be doing what my dad had done, but I know how I am inside and I know I’m different to him.” Alex hadn’t been sure how d’Arc would react. But he seemed completely unconcerned. “There are a great many Scorpia activities that do not involve killing,” he said. “You could be very useful to us, for example, for blackmail. Or as a courier. Who would suspect that a fourteen-year-old on a school trip was carrying drugs or plastic explosives? But these are early days, Alex. You have to trust us. We will discover what you can and can’t do and we will find the work that suits you best.”

“I was eighteen when I killed my first man,” Nile added. “That’s only four years older than you are now.”

“But, Nile, you were always exceptional,” d’Arc purred.

There was a knock at the door and a moment later a woman came in. She was Thai, slender and delicate and several inches shorter than Alex. She had dark, intelligent eyes and lips that could have been drawn with an artist’s pencil. She stopped and made the traditional greeting of the Thai people, bringing her hands together as if in prayer and bowing her head.

“Sawasdee, Alex,” she said. “It is very nice to meet you.” She had a very gentle voice and, like the principal, her English was excellent.

“This is Miss Binnag,” d’Arc said.

“My name is Eijit. But you can call me Jet. I have come to take you to your room.”

“You can rest this afternoon and I will see you again at dinner.” D’Arc stood up. He was very short. His pointed beard only just rose above the level of the desk. “I’m so glad you’re here, Alex. Welcome to Malagosto.” The woman called Jet led Alex out of the room, back across the main hall and down a corridor with a high vaulted ceiling and bare plaster walls.

“What do you do here?” Alex asked.

“I teach botany.”

“Botany?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

“It is a very important part of the syllabus,” Jet retorted. “There are many plants that can be useful to our work.

The oleander bush, for example. You can extract a poison similar to digitalis from the leaves and this will paralyse the nervous system and cause immediate death. The berries of the mistletoe can also be fatal. You must learn how to grow the rosary pea. Just one pea can kill an adult in minutes. Tomorrow you can come to my greenhouse, Alex. Every flower there is another funeral.”

She spoke in a way that was completely matter-of-fact. Again Alex felt a sense of unease. But he said nothing.

They passed a classroom that might once have been a chapel, with more faded frescos on the walls, and no windows. Another teacher, with ginger hair and a ruddy, weather-beaten face, was standing in front of a blackboard, talking to half a dozen students, two of them women. There was a complicated diagram on the board and each student had what looked like a cigar box on the desk in front of them.

“…and you can lead the main circuit through the lid and back into the plastic explosive,” he was saying. “And it’s right here, in front of the lock, that I always put the trembler switch…” Jet had paused briefly at the door. “This is Mr Ross,” she whispered. “Technical specialist. He’s from your country, from Glasgow. You’ll meet him tonight.”

They moved on. Behind him, Alex heard Mr Ross speaking again.

“Do try and concentrate, please, Miss Craig. We don’t want you blowing us all up…” They left the main building and walked over to the nearest apartment block that Alex had seen from the boat.

Again, the building looked dilapidated from the outside but it was elegant and modern inside. Jet showed Alex to an air-conditioned room on the second floor. It was on two levels, with a king-sized bed overlooking a large living space with sofas and a desk. There were french windows with a balcony and a sea view.

“I’ll come back for you at five,” Jet told him. “You have an appointment with the nurse. Mrs Rothman wants you to have a complete examination. We meet for drinks at six and dinner is early, at seven. There’s a night exercise tonight; the students are diving. But don’t worry. You won’t be taking part.” She bowed a second time and backed out of the room. Alex was left alone. He sat down on one of the sofas, noticing that the room had a fridge, a television and even a PlayStation 2—presumably put in for his benefit.

What had he got himself into? Had he done the right thing? Dark uncertainties rose up in his mind and he deliberately forced them back again. He remembered the video he had been shown, the terrible images he had seen. Mrs Jones mouthing those two words into the radio transmitter. He closed his eyes.

Outside, the waves broke against the island shore and the students in their white robes went once again through the motions of the silent kill.

Just over seven hundred miles away, the woman who had been so much in Alex’s thoughts was examining a photograph. There was a single sheet of paper attached to it and both were stamped with the words TOP

SECRET in red. The woman knew what the photo meant. There was only one course of action open to her. But for once—and for her it really was a first—she was reluctant. She couldn’t allow emotion to get in the way.

That was when mistakes were made, and in her line of work that could be disastrous. But even so…

Mrs Jones took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. She had received the photograph and report a few minutes ago. Since then she had made two calls, hoping against hope that there might have been a mistake. But there could be no doubt. The evidence was right there in front of her. She reached out and pressed a button on her phone, then spoke.

“William—is Mr Blunt in his office?”

In an outer office her personal assistant, William Dearly, glanced at his computer screen. He was twenty-three, a Cambridge graduate; he was in a wheelchair. “He hasn’t left the building yet, Mrs Jones.”

“Any meetings?”

“Nothing scheduled.”

“Right. I’m going there now.”

It had to be done. Mrs Jones took the photograph and the typed sheet and walked down the corridor on the sixteenth floor of the building that pretended to be an international bank but which was in fact the headquarters of MI6 Special Operations. Alan Blunt was her immediate superior. She wondered how he would react to the news that Alex Rider had joined Scorpia.

Blunt’s office was at the very end of the corridor with views overlooking Liverpool Street. Mrs Jones entered without knocking. There was no need. William would have rung to say she was coming. And sure enough, Blunt registered no surprise as she came in. Not that his round, strangely featureless face ever showed any emotion. He too had been reading a report, several centimetres thick. She could see he had made neat notes using a fountain pen and green ink for instant recognition.

“Yes?” he asked as she sat down.

“This just came in from SatInt. I thought you should see it.” SatInt was satellite intelligence. She passed it across.

Mrs Jones watched Alan Blunt carefully as he read the single page. She had been his deputy for seven years and had worked with him for another ten before that. She had never been to his home. She had never met his wife.

But she probably knew him better than anyone in the building. And she was worried about him. Quite recently he had made a huge mistake, refusing to believe Alex when it came to that business with Damian Cray. As a result, Cray had come within minutes of destroying half the world. Blunt had been given a severe dressing down by the home secretary, but it wasn’t just that he was finding hard to live with. It was the fact that he, the head of Special Operations, had been bettered by a fourteen-year-old-boy. Mrs Jones wondered how much longer he would stay.

Now he examined the photograph, his eyes unblinking behind his steel-framed spectacles. It showed two figures, a man and a boy, getting out of a boat. It had been taken above Malagosto and blown up many times.

Both faces were blurred.

“Alex Rider?” Blunt asked. There was a dead tone to his voice.

“The picture was taken by a spy satellite,” Mrs Jones said. “But Smithers ran it through one of his computers and it’s definitely him.”

“Who is the man with him?”

“We think it could be a Scorpia agent called Nile. It’s hard to tell. The photograph is black and white, but so is he. I’ve downloaded his details for you.”

“Are we to infer that Rider has decided to switch sides?”

“I’ve spoken to his housekeeper, the American girl … Jack Starbright. It seems that Alex disappeared four days ago from a school trip to Venice.”

“Disappeared where?”

“She didn’t know. It’s very surprising that he hasn’t been in touch with her. She’s his closest friend.”

“Is it possible that the boy has somehow become involved with Scorpia and has been taken by force?”

“I’d like to believe it.” Mrs Jones sighed. It couldn’t be avoided any longer. “But there was always a chance that Yassen Gregorovich managed to speak to Alex before he died. When I met Alex after the Cray business, I knew something was wrong. I think Yassen must have told him about John Rider.”

“Albert Bridge.”

“Yes.”

“That’s very unfortunate.”

There was a long silence. Mrs Jones knew that Blunt would be turning over a dozen possibilities in his mind, considering and eliminating each one in a matter of seconds. She had never met anyone with such an analytical brain.

“Scorpia haven’t been very active recently,” he said.

“It’s true. They’ve been very quiet. We think they may have been involved in a piece of sabotage at Consanto Enterprises, near Amalfi, yesterday evening.”

“The biomedical people?”

“Yes. We’ve only just received the reports and we’re looking into them. There may be a link.”

“If Scorpia have turned Alex, they’ll use him against us.”

“I know.”

Blunt took a last look at the photograph. “This is Malagosto,” he said. “And that means he isn’t their prisoner.

They’re training him. I think we should step up your security rating with immediate effect.”

“And yours?”

“I wasn’t on Albert Bridge.” He laid the photograph down. “I want all local agents in Venice placed on immediate alert, and we’d better contact airports and all points of entry into the UK. I want Alex Rider brought in.”

“Unharmed.” The single word was spoken as a challenge.

Blunt looked at her with empty eyes. “Whatever it takes.”

THE BELL TOWER

« ^ »

So tell me, Alex. What do you see?” Alex was sitting in a leather chair in a plain, whitewashed room at the back of the monastery. He was on one side of a desk, facing a smiling middle-aged man who sat on the other. The man’s name was Dr Karl Steiner and, although he spoke with a slight German accent, he had come to the island from South Africa. He was a psychiatrist and looked it—with silver-framed glasses, thinning hair and eyes that were always more inquisitive than friendly. Dr Steiner was holding a white card with a black shape on it. The shape looked like nothing at all; it was just a series of blobs. But Alex was meant to be able to interpret it.

He thought for a moment. He knew that this was called a Rorschach test; he had seen it once in a film. He supposed it must be important. But he wasn’t sure that he saw anything in particular on the card. Eventually he spoke.

“I suppose it’s a man flying through the sky,” he suggested. “He’s wearing a backpack.”

“That’s excellent. Very good!” Dr Steiner put the card down and picked up another. “How about this one?” The second shape was easier. “It’s a football being pumped up,” Alex said.

“Good, thank you.”

Dr Steiner laid the second card down and there was a brief silence in the office. Outside, Alex could hear gunfire. The other students were down on the shooting range. But there was no view of the range out of the window. Perhaps the psychiatrist had chosen this room for that reason.

“So how are you settling in?” Dr Steiner asked.

Alex shrugged. “OK.”

“You have no anxieties? Nothing you wish to discuss?”

“No. I’m fine, thank you, Dr Steiner.”

“Good. That’s good.” The psychiatrist seemed determined to be positive. Alex wondered if the interview was over, but then the man opened a file. “I have your medical report here,” he said.

For a moment Alex was nervous. He had been physically examined on his first day on the island. Stripped down to his underwear, he had been put through a whole series of tests by an Italian nurse who spoke little English. Blood and urine samples had been taken, his blood pressure and pulse measured, his sight, hearing and reflexes checked. He wondered now if they had found something wrong.

But Dr Steiner was still smiling. “You’re in very good shape, Alex,” he commented. “I’m glad you’ve been looking after yourself. Not too much fast food. No cigarettes. Very sensible.” He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a hypodermic syringe and a little bottle. As Alex watched, he inserted the needle into the bottle and filled the syringe.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“According to your medical report, you’re a little run-down. I suppose it’s to be expected after all you’ve been through. And I’m sure it’s very demanding, being here on this island. The nurse has suggested a vitamin booster. That’s all this is.” He held the needle up to the light and squirted a little of the amber-coloured liquid out of the tip. “Would you mind rolling up your sleeve?”

Alex hesitated. “I thought you were a psychiatrist,” he said.

“I’m perfectly qualified to give you an injection,” Dr Steiner said. He raised an accusing finger. “You’re not going to tell me you’re afraid of a little prick?”

“I wouldn’t call you that,” Alex muttered. He rolled up his left sleeve.

Two minutes later, he was back outside.

He had been missing gun practice because of his medical appointment and he joined the other students on the firing range. This was on the western side of the island—the side that faced away from Venice. Although Scorpia were legally permitted to be on Malagosto, they hadn’t wanted to draw attention to themselves with the sound of gunfire, and the woodland provided a natural screen. There was a strip of the island that was long and flat with nothing growing apart from wild grasses, and the school had built a cut-out town, with offices and shops that were nothing more than fronts, like a film set. Alex had already been through it twice, using a handgun to shoot at paper targets—black rings with a red bull’s-eye—that popped up in the windows and doors.

Gordon Ross, the ginger-haired technical specialist who seemed to have picked up most of his skills in Scotland’s tougher jails, was in charge of the shooting range. He nodded as Alex approached.

“Good afternoon, Mr Rider. How was your visit to the shrink? Did he tell you you’re mad? If not, I wonder what the hell you’re doing here!”

A number of other students stood around him, unloading and adjusting their weapons. Alex knew all of them by now. There was Klaus, a German mercenary who had trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Walker, who had spent five years with the CIA in Washington before deciding he could earn more working for the other side.

One of the two women there had become quite close to Alex, and he wondered if she had been specially chosen to look after him. Her name was Amanda and she had been a soldier with the Israeli army in the occupied Gaza Strip. Seeing him, she raised a hand in greeting. She seemed genuinely pleased to see him.

But then they all did. That was the strange thing. He had been accepted into the day-to-day life of Malagosto without any problem. That in itself was remarkable. Alex remembered the time MI6 had sent him for training with the SAS in Wales. He had been an outsider from the day he arrived, unwanted and unwelcome, a child in an adult world. He was by far the youngest person here too, but that didn’t seem to matter. Quite the opposite.

He was accepted and even admired by the other students. He was John Rider’s son. Everyone knew what that meant.

“You’re just in time to show us what you can do before lunch,” Gordon Ross announced. His Scottish accent made almost everything sound like a challenge. “You got a high score the day before yesterday. In fact, you were second in the class. Let’s see if you can do even better today. But this time I may have built in a little surprise!”

He handed Alex a gun, a Belgian-made FN semiautomatic pistol. Alex weighed it in his hand, trying to find the balance between himself and his weapon. Ross had explained that this was essential to the technique he called instinctive firing.

“Remember—you have to shoot instantly. You can’t stop to take aim. If you do, you’re dead. In a real combat situation you don’t have time to mess around. You and the gun are one. And if you believe that you can hit the target, you will hit the target. That’s what instinctive firing is all about.” Now Alex stepped forward, the gun at his side, watching the mocked-up doors and windows in front of him. He knew there would be no warning. At any time, a target could appear. He would be expected to turn and fire.

He waited. He was aware of the other students watching him. Out of the corner of his eye he could just make out the shape of Gordon Ross. Was the teacher smiling?

A sudden movement.

A target had appeared in an upper window and immediately Alex saw that the bull’s-eye targets with their impersonal rings had been replaced. A photograph had appeared instead. It was a life-sized colour picture of a young man. Alex didn’t know who he was—but that didn’t matter. He was a target.

There was no time to hesitate.

Alex raised the gun and fired.

Later that day, Oliver d’Arc, the principal of Scorpia’s Training and Assessment Centre, sat in his office on Malagosto, talking to Julia Rothman. Her image filled the screen of the laptop computer on his desk. There was a webcam perched on a shelf and his own image would be appearing simultaneously somewhere in the Widow’s Palace just across the water, in Venice. Mrs Rothman never came to the island. She knew it was under surveillance by both the American and British intelligence services, and one day they might be tempted to target the island with a non-nuclear ballistic missile. It was too dangerous.

It was only the second occasion they had spoken since Alex had arrived. The time was exactly seven o’clock in the evening. Outside, the sun had begun to set.

“How is he progressing?” Mrs Rothman asked. Her own webcam didn’t flatter her; her face on the screen looked cold and a little colourless.

D’Arc considered. He ran a thumb and a single finger down the sides of his chin, stroking his beard. “The boy is certainly exceptional,” he murmured. “Of course, his uncle, Ian Rider, trained him all his life, almost from the moment he could walk. I have to say, he did a good job.”

“And?”

“He is very intelligent. Quick-witted. Everyone here genuinely likes him. Unfortunately, though, I have my doubts about his usefulness to us.”

“I am very sorry to hear that, Professor d’Arc. Please explain.”

“I will give you two examples, Mrs Rothman. Today Alex returned to the shooting range. We’ve been putting him through a course of instinctive firing. It’s something he’s never done before and, I have to say, it takes many of our students several weeks to master the art. After just a few hours on the range, Alex was already achieving impressive results. At the end of his second day he scored seventy-two per cent.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that.” D’Arc shifted in his seat. In his formal suit and tie, shrunk to fit Mrs Rothman’s computer screen, he looked rather like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “Today we switched the targets,” he explained. “Instead of black and red rings, Alex was asked to fire at photographs of men and women. He was supposed to aim at the vital areas: the heart … between the eyes.”

“How did he do?”

“That’s the point. His score dropped to forty-six per cent. He missed several targets altogether.” D’Arc took off his glasses and polished them with a cloth. “I also have the results of his Rorschach psychological test,” he went on. “He was asked to identify certain shapes—”

“I do know what a Rorschach test is, Professor.”

“Of course. Forgive me. Well, there was one shape that every student who has ever come here has identified as a man lying in a pool of blood. But not Alex. He said he thought it was a man flying through the air with a backpack. Another shape, which is invariably seen as a gun pointing at someone’s head, he believed to be someone pumping up a football. At our very first meeting, Alex told me that he couldn’t kill for us, and I have to say that, psychologically speaking, he seems to lack what might be called the killer instinct.” There was a long pause. The image on the computer screen flickered.

“It’s very disappointing,” d’Arc went on. “Having met Alex, I must say that a teenage assassin would be extremely useful to us. The possibilities are almost limitless. I think we should make it a high priority to find one of our own.”

“I doubt there are many teenagers quite as experienced as Alex.”

“That’s what I began by saying. But even so…”

There was another pause. Mrs Rothman came to a decision. “Did Alex see Dr Steiner?” she asked.

“Yes. Everything was done exactly as you instructed.”

“Good.” She nodded. “You say that Alex won’t kill for us, but you could still be proved wrong. It’s just a question of giving him the right target—and this time I’m not talking about paper.”

“You want to send him on an assignment?”

“As you know, Invisible Sword is about to enter its final, critical phase. Introducing Alex Rider into the mix right now might provide an interesting distraction, at the very least. And if he did succeed, which I believe he might, he could be very useful indeed. All in all, the timing couldn’t be better.” Julia Rothman leant forward so that her eyes almost filled the screen.

“This is what I want you to do…”

There were two hundred and forty-seven steps to the top of the bell tower. Alex knew because he had counted every one of them. The bottom of the tower was empty, a single chamber with bare brick walls and a smell of damp. It had clearly been abandoned years ago. The bells themselves either had been stolen or had fallen down and been lost. The stairs were made of stone and twisted round, following the edges of the tower, and small windows allowed just enough light to see. There was a door at the top. Alex wondered if it would be locked.

The tower was used occasionally during camouflage exercises, when the students had to creep from one side of the island to the other. It was a useful lookout post. But he hadn’t been up here before himself.

The door was open. It led to a square platform, about ten metres wide, out in the open air. Once there might have been a balustrade enclosing the platform and making it safe. But at some point it had been removed and now the stone floor simply ended. If Alex took three more paces he would step into nothing. He would fall to his death.

Cautiously Alex walked to the edge and glanced down. He was right above the monastery courtyard. He could see the makiwara which had been set up earlier in the afternoon. This was a heavy pole with a thick leather pad wrapped around it at head height. It was used to practise kick-boxing and karate strikes. There was nobody in sight. Lessons for the day had ended and the other students were resting before dinner.

He looked across the woodland that surrounded the monastery, already dark and impenetrable. The sun was sinking into the sea, spilling the last of its light over the black water. In the distance he could see the twinkling lights of Venice. What was happening there right now? Tourists would be leaving their hotels, searching out the restaurants and bars. There might be concerts in some of the churches. The gondoliers would be tying up their boats. Winter might be a long way off but already it was too cold for most people to set out on an evening cruise. Alex still found it hard to believe that this island with all its secrets could exist so close to one of the world’s most popular holiday destinations. Two worlds. Side by side. But one of them was blind, utterly unaware of the existence of the other.

He stood there unmoving, feeling the breeze rippling through his hair. He was wearing only a long-sleeved shirt and jeans and he was conscious of the evening chill. But somehow it was distant. It was as if he had become part of the tower—a statue or a gargoyle. He was on Malagosto because he had nowhere else to go; he no longer had any choice.

He thought back over the last couple of weeks. How long had he been on the island? He had no idea. In many ways it was just like being at school. There were teachers and classrooms and separate lessons, and one day more or less blurred into the next. Only the subjects here were nothing like the ones he had studied at Brookland.

First there was history—also taught by Gordon Ross. But his version of history had nothing to do with kings and queens, battles and treaties. Ross specialized in the history of weapons.

“Now, this is the double-edged commando knife, developed in the Second World War by Fairbairn and Sykes.

One was a silent killing specialist, the other a crack shot with the rifle. Isn’t it a beauty? You’ll see it has a seven and a half inch blade with a crosspiece and a ribbed centre on both sides. It’s designed to fit exactly in your palm. You may find it a little heavy, Alex, as your hand isn’t fully developed. But this is still the greatest murder weapon ever invented. Guns are noisy; guns can jam. But the commando knife is a true friend. It will do its job instantly and it will never let you down.”

Then there were practical lessons with Professor Yermalov. As Nile had said, he was the least friendly member of the staff at Malagosto: a scowling, silent man in his fifties who had little time for anyone. But Alex soon found out why. Yermalov was from Chechnya and had lost his entire family in the war with Russia.

“Today I am going to show you how to make yourself invisible,” he said.

Alex couldn’t resist a faint smile.

Yermalov saw it. “You think I am making a joke with you, Mr Rider? You think I am talking about children’s books? A cloak of invisibility, perhaps? You are wrong. I am teaching you the skills of the ninjas, the greatest spies who ever lived. The ninja assassins of feudal Japan were reputed to have the ability to vanish into thin air.

In fact they used the five elements of escape and concealment—the gotonpo. Not magic but science. They might hide underwater, breathing through a tube. They might bury themselves a few centimetres below the surface of the earth. Wearing protective clothing, they might hide inside a fire. To vanish into the air, they carried a rope or even a hidden ladder. And there were other possibilities. They developed the art of sight removers or eye blinders. Blind your enemy with smoke or chemicals and you will become invisible. That is what I will show you now, and this afternoon Miss Binnag will be demonstrating how to make a blinding powder from hot peppers…”

There had been other exercises too. How to assemble and dismantle an automatic pistol while blindfolded (Alex had dropped all the pieces, much to the amusement of the other students). How to use fear. How to use surprise.

How to target aggression. There were textbooks—including a manual on the most vulnerable parts of the human body, written by a Dr Three—as well as blackboards and even written exams. They sat in classrooms with ordinary desks. There was just one difference. This was a school for assassination.

And then there had been the demonstration. It was something Alex would never forget.

One afternoon the students had assembled in the main courtyard, where Oliver d’Arc was standing with Nile, who was dressed in white judo robes with a black belt around his waist. It was odd how often the two colours seemed to surround him, as if perpetually mocking his disease.

“Nile was one of our best students,” d’Arc explained. “Since his time here, he has risen up the ranks of Scorpia with successful assignments in Washington, London, Bangkok, Sydney—all over the world, in fact. He has kindly agreed to show you a few of his techniques. I’m sure you’ll all learn something from him.” He bowed.

“Thank you, Nile.”

In the next thirty minutes, Alex saw a display of strength, agility and fitness he would never forget. Nile smashed bricks and planks with his elbows, fists and bare feet. Three students with long wooden staffs closed in on him. Unarmed, he beat them all, weaving in and out, moving so fast that at times his hands were no more than a blur. Then he proceeded to demonstrate a variety of ninja weapons: knives, swords, spears and chains.

Alex watched him throw a dozen him shuriken at a wooden target. These were the deadly, star-shaped projectiles that spun through the air, each steel point razor sharp. One after another they thudded into the wood, hitting the inner circle. Nile never missed. And this was a man with some sort of secret weakness? Alex couldn’t see it—and he understood now how he had been defeated so easily at the Widow’s Palace. Against a man like Nile he wouldn’t stand a chance.

But they were on the same side.

Alex reminded himself of that now as he stood at the top of the bell tower, watching the night draw in and darkness take hold. He had made his choice. He was part of Scorpia now.

Like his father.

Had he made the right decision? At the time, it had all seemed very simple. Yassen Gregorovich had told the truth; Mrs Rothman had shown it to him on film. But he still wasn’t sure. There was a voice whispering to him in the evening breeze that this was all a terrible mistake, that he shouldn’t be here, that it wasn’t too late to get away. But where would he go? How could he return to England, knowing what he did? Albert Bridge. He couldn’t erase the images from his mind. The three Scorpia agents waiting. Mrs Jones talking into the radio transmitter. The betrayal. John Rider pitching forward and lying still.

Alex felt hatred welling up inside him. It was stronger than anything he had ever experienced in his life. He wondered if it would be possible to live an ordinary life again one day. There seemed to be nowhere for him to go. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he just took one more step. He was already standing on the very edge. Why couldn’t he just let the night take him?

“Alex?”

He hadn’t heard anyone approach. He looked round and saw Nile standing in the doorway, one hand resting against the frame.

“I’ve been looking for you, Alex. What are you doing?”

“I was just thinking.”

“Professor Yermalov said he thought he saw you come up here. You shouldn’t really be here.” Alex expected Nile to come forward, but he stayed where he was.

“I just wanted to be alone,” Alex explained.

“I think you should come down. You could fall.”

Alex hesitated. Then he nodded. “All right.”

He followed Nile back down the twisting staircase and at last they emerged at ground level.

“Professor d’Arc wants to see you,” Nile said.

“To fail me?”

“What gave you that idea? You’ve done extremely well. Everyone is very pleased with you. You’ve been here less than a fortnight but you’ve already made great progress.” They walked back together. A couple of students passed them and murmured a greeting. Only the day before, Alex had seen them fight a ferocious duel with fencing swords. They were deadly killers; they were his friends.

He shook his head and followed Nile into the monastery and through to d’Arc’s study.

As usual, the principal was sitting behind his desk. He was looking as neat as ever, his beard perfectly trimmed.

“Do, please, sit down, Alex,” he said. He tapped a few keys on his computer and glanced at the screen through his gold-rimmed spectacles. “I have some of your results here,” he went on. “You’ll be pleased to know that all the teachers speak very highly of you.” He frowned. “We do have one small problem, however. Your psychological profile…”

Alex said nothing.

“This business of killing,” d’Arc said. “I heard what you said when you first came to my office and, as I told you, there are many other things you could do for Scorpia. But here’s the problem, my dear boy. You’re afraid of killing, so you’re afraid of Scorpia. You are not quite one of us—and I fear you never will be. That is not satisfactory.”

“Are you asking me to leave?”

“Not at all. I’m asking you only to trust us a little more. I’m searching for a way to make you feel that you belong with us completely. And I think I have the answer.”

D’Arc switched off his computer and walked round from behind the desk. He was dressed in another suit—he wore a different suit every day. This one was brown, with a herringbone pattern.

“You have to learn to kill,” he said suddenly. “You have to do it without any hesitation. Because, when you’ve done it once, you’ll see that actually it wasn’t such a big deal. It’s the same as jumping into a swimming pool.

As easy as that. But you have to cross the psychological barrier, Alex, if you are to become one of us.” He raised a hand. “I know you are very young; I know this isn’t easy. But I want to help you. I want to make it less painful for you. And I think I can.

“I am going to send you to England tomorrow. That same evening you will carry out your first mission for Scorpia and, if you succeed, there will be no going back. You will know that you are truly one of us and we will know that we can trust you. But here is the good news.” D’Arc smiled, showing teeth that didn’t look quite real.

“We have chosen the one person in the world who—we think you’ll agree—most deserves to die. It is someone you have every reason to despise, and we hope that your hatred and your anger will drive you on, removing any last doubts you may have.

“Mrs Jones. The deputy head of MI6 Special Operations. She was the one responsible for the death of your father.

“We know where she lives; we will help you get to her. She is the one we want you to kill.” DEAR PRIME MINISTER…

« ^ »

Just before four o’clock in the afternoon, a man got out of a taxi in Whitehall, paid with a brand-new twenty-pound note, and began to walk the short distance to Downing Street. The man had started his journey at Paddington, but that wasn’t where he lived. Nor had he come into London on a train. He was about thirty years old with short, fair hair, and he was wearing a suit and tie.

It is not possible to walk into Downing Street, not since Margaret Thatcher erected huge anti-terrorist gates.

Britain is the only democracy whose leaders feel the need to hide behind bars. As always, there was a policeman there, just coming to the end of his eight-hour shift.

The man walked up to him, at the same time producing a plain white envelope made from the very finest paper.

Later, when the envelope was analysed, it would be found to have come from a supplier in Naples. There would be no fingerprints, even though the man who had delivered it was not wearing gloves. He had no fingerprints: they had been surgically removed.

“Good afternoon,” he said. He had no accent of any kind. His voice was pleasant and polite.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“I have a letter for the prime minister.”

The policeman had heard it a hundred times. There were cranks and pressure groups, people with grievances, people needing help. Often they came here with letters and petitions, hoping they would reach the prime minister’s desk. The policeman was friendly. As he was trained to be.

“Thank you, sir. If you’d like to leave it with me, I’ll see it goes through.” The policeman took the letter—and his would be the only fingerprints that would show up later. Written on the front of the envelope in neat, flowing handwriting were the words: For the attention of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, First Lord of the Treasury, 10 Downing Street. He carried it into the long, narrow office which is little more than a Portakabin and which all members of the public must pass through before they can enter the famous street. This was as close as the letter would normally get to number ten. It would be re-routed to an office where a secretary—one of many—would open and read it. If necessary, it might be passed on to the appropriate department. More likely, after a few weeks, the sender would receive a standard, word-processed reply.

This letter was different.

When the duty officer received it, he turned it over, and that was when he saw the silver scorpion embossed on the other side. There are many symbols and code words used by criminal and terrorist organizations. They are designed to make themselves instantly identifiable so that the authorities will treat them seriously. The duty officer knew at once that he was holding a communication from Scorpia, and pressed the panic button, alerting half a dozen policemen outside.

“Who delivered this?” he demanded.

“It was just someone…” The policeman was old and approaching the end of his career. After today, that end would be considerably nearer. “He was young. Fair-haired. Wearing a suit.”

“Get out there and see if you can find him.”

But it was too late. Seconds after the man in the suit had delivered the letter, another taxi had drawn up and he had got in. This taxi was not in fact licensed and its number plate was fake. After less than half a mile the man had got out again, disappearing into the crowds pouring out of Charing Cross Station. His hair was now dark brown; he had discarded his jacket and was wearing sunglasses. He would never be seen again.

By five thirty that evening the letter had been photographed, the paper analysed, the envelope checked for any trace of biochemical agents. The prime minister was not in the country. He had gone to Mexico City to join other world leaders at a summit meeting about the environment. He had been in the middle of a photo session but had been called outside and told about the letter. Already he was on his way home.

Meanwhile, two men were sitting in his private office. One was the permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office.

The other was the director of communications. They each had a copy of the letter—three typewritten sheets, unsigned—in front of them.

This was what they had read:

Dear Prime Minister,

It is with regret that we must inform you that we are about to bring terror to your country.

We are acting on the instructions of an overseas client who wishes to make certain adjustments to the balance of world power. He makes four demands:

1. The Americans must withdraw all their troops and secret service personnel from every country around the world. Never again will the Americans act as international policemen.

2. The Americans must announce their intention to destroy their entire nuclear weapons programme as well as their long-range conventional weapons systems. We will allow six months for this process to be put into effect and completed. By the end of that time, the United States must have disarmed.

3. The sum of one billion dollars must be paid to the World Bank, this money to be used to rebuild poor countries and countries damaged by recent wars.

4. The president of the United States must resign immediately.

Prime Minister, you may wonder why this letter is addressed to you when our demands are directed entirely at the American government.

The reason for this is simple. You are the Americans’ best friend. You have always supported their foreign policy. Now it is time to see if they will be as loyal to you as you have been to them.

Should they fail, it is you who will pay the price.

We will wait two days. To be more precise, we are prepared to give you forty-eight hours, starting from the moment this letter was delivered. During this time, we expect to hear the president of the United States agree to our terms.

If he fails to do so, we will inflict a terrible punishment on the people of Britain.

We must inform you, Prime Minister, that we have developed a new weapon which we have called Invisible Sword. This weapon is now primed and operational. If the president of the United States chooses not to respond to all four of our demands in the allotted time, then—at exactly four o’clock on Thursday afternoon—many thousands of schoolchildren in London will die. Let me assure you, most sincerely, that this cannot be avoided. The technology is in place; the targets have been selected. This is not a hollow threat.

Even so, we understand that you may doubt the power of Invisible Sword.

We have therefore arranged a demonstration. This evening the England reserve football squad will be returning to Britain from Nigeria, where they have been playing a number of exhibition games.

When you read this letter, they will already be in the air. They are due to arrive at Heathrow Airport at five minutes past seven.

At exactly seven fifteen, all eighteen members of this squad, including the coaches, will be killed.

You cannot save them; you cannot protect them: you can only watch. We hope, by this action, you will understand that we are to be taken seriously and thus you will act quickly to persuade the Americans to comply. By doing so, you will avoid the terrible and pointless massacre of so many of your young people.

We have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of this letter to the American ambassador in London. We will be watching the news channels on television, where we will be expecting an announcement to be made. You will receive no further communication from us. We repeat: these demands cannot be negotiated. The countdown has already begun.

Yours faithfully,

SCORPIA

There was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of an antique clock, as both men studied the letter for a fourth and then a fifth time. Each was aware of the other, wondering how he would react. The two men could not have been more different. Nor could they have disliked each other more.

Sir Graham Adair had been a civil servant for as long as anyone could remember, not part of any government but always serving it, advising it and (some people said) controlling it. He was now in his sixties and had silvery-grey hair and a face accustomed to disguising its emotions. He was dressed, as always, in a dark, old-fashioned suit. He was the sort of man who was sparing in his movements and who never said anything until he had thoroughly considered it first. He had worked with six prime ministers in his lifetime and had different opinions about them all. But he had never told anyone, not even his wife, his innermost thoughts. He was the perfect public servant. One of the most powerful people in the country, he was delighted that very few people knew his name.

The director of communications hadn’t even been born when Sir Graham had first entered Downing Street.

Mark Kellner was one of the many “special advisers” with whom the prime minister liked to surround himself

—and he was also the most influential. He had been at university—studying politics and economics—with the prime minister’s wife. For a time he had worked in television, until he had been invited to try his luck in the corridors of power. He was a small, thin man with glasses and too much curly hair. He was also wearing a suit, and there was dandruff on his shoulders.

It was Kellner who broke the silence with a single four-letter word. Sir Graham glanced at him. He never used that sort of language himself.

“You don’t believe any of this rubbish, do you?” Kellner demanded.

“This letter came from Scorpia,” Sir Graham replied. “I have had direct dealings with them in the past, and I have to tell you that they’re not known to make idle threats.”

“You accept that they’ve invented some sort of secret weapon? An invisible sword?” Mark Kellner couldn’t hide the scorn in his voice. “So what’s going to happen? They’re going to wave some sort of magic wand and everyone’s going to fall down dead?”

“As I’ve already said, Mr Kellner, in my opinion Scorpia would not have sent this letter if they did not have the means to back it up. They are probably the most dangerous criminal organization in the world. Bigger than the Mafia, more ruthless than the triads.”

“But you tell me: what sort of weapon could target children? Thousands of schoolchildren—that’s what they say. So what are they going to do? Set off some sort of dirty bomb in the playground? Or maybe they’re going to go round schools with hand grenades!”

“They say the weapon is primed and operational.”

“The weapon doesn’t exist!” Kellner slammed his hand down on his copy of the letter. “And even if it did, these demands are ridiculous. The American president is not going to resign. His popularity ratings have never been better. And as for this suggestion that the Americans dismantle their weapons systems—do Scorpia really think for a single minute that they’ll even consider it? The Americans love weapons! They’ve got more weapons than just about anyone else in the world. We show this letter to the president, and he’ll laugh at us.”

“MI6 aren’t prepared to rule out the possibility that the weapon exists.”

“You’ve spoken to them?”

“I had a telephone conversation with Alan Blunt earlier this evening. I have also sent him a copy of the letter.

He believes, like me, that we should treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.”

“The prime minister has cut short his visit to Mexico,” Kellner muttered. “He’s flying home as we speak. You don’t get much more serious than that!”

“I’m sure we’re all grateful to the prime minister for interrupting his conference,” Sir Graham retorted drily.

“But I would have said it’s the aircraft carrying these football players that we should be considering. I’ve also spoken to British Airways. Flight 0074 was delayed in Lagos earlier today and only left this afternoon, just before half past twelve our time. It should be touching down at Heathrow at five past seven, just like the letter says. And the England reserve football squad are on board.”

“So what are you suggesting we do?” Kellner demanded.

“It’s very simple. The threat to the plane is at Heathrow. Scorpia’s helped us at least by giving us the place and the time. We must therefore re-route the plane at once. It can land at Birmingham or Manchester. Our first priority is to make sure the players are safe.”

“I’m afraid I don’t agree.”

Sir Graham Adair glanced at the director of communications, his eyes filled with an icy contempt. He had spoken at length with Alan Blunt. Both of them had been expecting this.

“Let me tell you my way of thinking,” Kellner continued. He held his two index fingers in the air, as if to frame what he had to say. “I know you’re scared of Scorpia; you’ve made that much clear. Well, I’ve read their demands and personally I think they’re a bunch of idiots. But either way, they’ve given us a chance to call their bluff. Redirecting this football team is the last thing we want to do. We can use the arrival of the plane to test this so-called Invisible Sword. And by sixteen minutes past seven we’ll know it doesn’t exist and we can put Scorpia’s letter where it deserves to be—in the bin!”

“You’re willing to risk the lives of the players?”

“There is no risk. We’ll throw a security blanket around Heathrow Airport, making it impossible for anyone to get near them. The letter states that the players are going to be hit at exactly seven fifteen. We can find out exactly who’s on the plane. Then we can make sure that there are a hundred armed soldiers surrounding it when it lands. Scorpia can bring out their weapon and we’ll see exactly what it is and how it works. Anyone tries to set foot in the airport, we’ll arrest them and throw them in jail. End of story; end of threat.”

“And how are you going to put a hundred extra armed guards into Heathrow Airport?” Sir Graham asked.

“You’ll start a national panic.”

Kellner grinned. “You think I can’t make up some sort of spin to take care of that? I’ll say it’s a training exercise. Nobody’ll even blink.”

The permanent secretary sighed. There were times when he wondered if he wasn’t getting too old for this sort of work—and this was definitely one of them. There remained one final question. But he already knew the answer.

“Have you put this to the prime minister?” he asked.

“Yes. While you were speaking to MI6, I was talking to him. And he agrees with me. So I’m afraid on this matter you’re overruled, Sir Graham.”

“He’s aware of the risks?”

“We don’t believe there are any risks, actually. But it’s really very simple. If we don’t act now, we’ll lose the chance to see this weapon in action. If we do this my way, we force Scorpia to show their hand.” Sir Graham Adair stood up. “There doesn’t seem to be anything more to discuss,” he said.

“You’d better get on to MI6.”

“Of course.” Sir Graham moved to the door. He stopped and turned round. “And what happens if you’re wrong?” he enquired. “What happens if these players do somehow get killed?” Kellner shrugged. “At least we’ll know what we’re dealing with,” he said. “And they lost every single one of their games while they were in Nigeria. I’m sure we can put together another team.” The plane landing at Heathrow was a Boeing 747—flight number BA 0074 from Lagos. It had been in the air for six hours and thirty-five minutes. It had departed late. There had been a seemingly endless delay in Lagos: some sort of technical fault. Scorpia had arranged that, of course. It was important the plane followed the schedule that they had imposed. It had to land by five past seven. In fact it hit the runway at five minutes to.

The eighteen members of the football squad were sitting in business class. They were blank-faced and bleary-eyed, not just from the long flight but from the series of defeats they had left behind them. The tour had been a disaster from start to finish. These were only exhibition games. The results weren’t meant to matter, but the trip had been something of a humiliation.

As they gazed out of the windows, looking at the grey light and the grey tarmac of a Heathrow twilight, the captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Heathrow. Once again, I’m sorry for the late running of this aircraft. I’m afraid I’ve just spoken to the control tower and for some reason we’re being re-routed away from the main terminal, so we’re going to be out here a little longer. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened, and we’ll have you out of here as soon as we possibly can.” And here was something strange. As the plane taxied forward, two army jeeps appeared from nowhere, one on each side, escorting them along the runway. There were soldiers with machine guns in the back. Following instructions from the control tower, the plane turned off and began to move away from the main buildings. The two jeeps accompanied it.

Alan Blunt stood behind an observation window, watching the 747 through a pair of miniature binoculars. He didn’t move as the plane trundled towards a square concrete holding area. When he lowered the binoculars, his eyes still remained fixed on the distance. He hadn’t spoken for several minutes; he’d barely even breathed.

There is nothing more dangerous than a government that does not trust its own intelligence and security services. Unfortunately, as Blunt was only too well aware, the prime minister had made his dislike of both MI5

and MI6 clear almost from the first day he had come to power. This was the result.

“So what now?” Sir Graham Adair was standing next to him. The permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office knew Alan Blunt very well. They met once a month, formally, to discuss intelligence matters. But they were also members of the same club and occasionally played bridge together. Now he was watching the sky and the runway as if expecting to see a missile streaking towards the slowly moving plane.

“We are about to watch eighteen people die.”

“Kellner is a bloody fool, but even so I can’t see how they’re going to do it.” Sir Graham didn’t want to believe him. “The airport has been sealed off since six. We’ve trebled the security. Everyone is on the highest possible alert. You looked at the passenger list?”

Blunt knew just about everything about every man, woman and child who had boarded the plane in Lagos.

Hundreds of agents had spent the past hour checking and cross-checking their details, looking for anything remotely suspicious. If there were assassins or terrorists on the plane, they would have to be under deep cover.

At the same time, the pilots and cabin staff had been alerted to look out for anything amiss. If anyone so much as stood up before the squad had disembarked, they would raise the alarm.

“Of course we did,” Blunt said irritably.

“And?”

“Tourists. Businessmen. Families. Two weather forecasters and a celebrity chef. Nobody seems to have any understanding of what we’re up against.”

“Tell me.”

“Scorpia will do what they said they would do: it’s as simple as that. They never fail.”

“They may not find it so easy this time.” Sir Graham looked at his watch. It was nine minutes past seven. “It’s still possible they made a mistake warning us.”

“They only warned you because they knew there was nothing you could do.” The plane came to a halt with the two jeeps on either side. At the same time, more armed soldiers appeared.

They were everywhere. Some were in clusters on the ground, watching the plane through the telescopic sights of their automatic weapons. There were snipers dotted about on the roofs, all of them linked by radio. Armed policemen with sniffer dogs waited at the entrance to the main terminal. Every door was guarded. Nobody was being allowed in or out.

Sixty more seconds had passed. There were just five minutes to the deadline: quarter past seven.

On the plane the captain switched off the engines. Normally the passengers would already be standing up, reaching for their bags, anxious to leave. But by now they all knew something was wrong. The plane seemed to have stopped in the middle of nowhere. Powerful spotlights had been trained on it, as if pinning it down. There was no tunnel connecting the door with the terminal. A vehicle edged slowly forward, bringing with it a flight of steps. Armed soldiers in khaki uniforms with helmets and visors crept along beside it. Whatever window the passengers looked out of, they could see armed forces totally surrounding the plane.

The captain spoke again, his voice deliberately calm and matter-of-fact.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have a situation here at Heathrow, but the control tower assures me that it’s all routine … there’s nothing to worry about. We’re going to be opening the main door in a moment, but I must ask you to remain in your seats until you’re given instructions to leave. We’re going to be disembarking our passengers in business class first, starting with those in rows seven to nine. The rest of you will be allowed to leave very shortly. Please can I ask for your patience for just a few minutes more.” Rows seven to nine. The captain had already been told. These were the rows occupied by the football squad.

None of the players had been informed of what was happening.

There were four minutes left.

The players stood up and began to collect their hand luggage, a variety of sports bags and souvenirs: brightly coloured clothes and wooden carvings. They were glad they had been chosen to leave first. Some of them were thinking that it was all quite fun.

The steps connected with the side of the plane and Blunt watched as a man in orange overalls ran up to stand next to the door. The man looked like an airport technician but in fact he worked for MI6. A dozen soldiers sprinted forward and formed a circle around the steps, their guns pointing outwards so that they resembled a human porcupine. Every angle was covered. The nearest building was more than fifty metres away.

At the same time, a bus appeared. The bus was one of two kept at Heathrow for exceptional circumstances such as this. It looked ordinary but its shell was made of reinforced steel and its windows were bulletproof. Blunt had been in charge of all these preparations, working with the police and airport authorities. As soon as all the players were on board, it would leave the airport, not bothering with customs or passport control. Fast cars were waiting on the other side of the perimeter fence. The players, two or three in each, would be whisked to a secret location in London. By then they would be safe.

Or so everyone hoped. Blunt alone was less sure.

“There’s nothing,” Sir Graham murmured. “There’s nobody even close.” It was true. The area surrounding the plane was empty. There were maybe fifty soldiers and policemen in view.

But nobody else.

“Scorpia will have been expecting this.”

“Maybe one of the soldiers…” Sir Graham hadn’t thought of this until now—when it was too late.

“They’ve all been checked,” Blunt said. “I went through the list personally.”

“Then for heaven’s sake—”

The door of the plane opened.

A stewardess appeared at the top of the steps, blinking nervously in the glare of the spotlights. Only now could she fully appreciate how serious the situation must be. It was as if the plane had landed in a battlefield. It was totally surrounded. There were men with guns everywhere.

The MI6 agent in the orange overalls spoke briefly with her and she went back inside. Then the first of the players appeared, a sports bag slung over his shoulder.

“That’s Hill-Smith,” Sir Graham said. “He’s the team captain.” Blunt looked at his watch. It was fourteen minutes past seven.

Edmund Hill-Smith was dark-haired, a well-built man. He looked around him, obviously puzzled. He was followed by the other squad members. A black player in sunglasses. His name was Jackson Burke; he was the goalie. Then one of the strikers, a man with blond hair. He was holding a straw hat, something he must have bought in a Nigerian market. One by one they appeared in the doorway and began to walk down the stairs to the waiting bus.

Blunt said nothing. A tiny pulse was beating in his temple. All eighteen men were out in the open now. Sir Graham looked left and right. Where was the attack going to come from? There was nothing anybody could do.

Hill-Smith and Burke had already reached the bus. They were safely inside.

Blunt twisted his wrist. The seconds hand on his watch passed the twelve.

One of the players, the last to leave the plane, seemed to stumble. Sir Graham saw one of the soldiers turn, alarmed. On the bus Burke suddenly jerked backwards, his shoulders slamming into the glass. Another player, halfway down the stairs, dropped his bag and clutched his chest, his face distorted with pain. He toppled over, knocking into the two men in front of him. But they too appeared to have been gripped by some invisible force…

One after another the players crumpled. The soldiers were shouting, gesticulating. What was happening was impossible. There was no enemy. Nobody had done anything. But eighteen healthy athletes were collapsing in front of their eyes. Sir Graham saw one of the soldiers speaking frantically into a radio transmitter and a second later a fleet of ambulances appeared, lights blazing, speeding towards the plane. So somebody had been prepared for the worst. Sir Graham glanced at Blunt and knew it had been him.

The ambulances were already too late. By the time they arrived, Burke was on his back, gasping his last few breaths. Hill-Smith had joined him, dropping to the floor of the bus, his lips mauve, his eyes empty. The steps were strewn with bodies, one or two feebly kicking, the others deadly still. The man with the blond hair was lost in a tangle of bodies. The straw hat had rolled away, blown across the runway by the breeze.

“What?” Sir Graham rasped. “How?” He couldn’t find the words.

“Invisible Sword,” Blunt said.

At that exact moment, a quarter of a mile away in Terminal Two, passengers were just arriving on a flight from Rome. At passport control the officer noticed a mother and a father with their son. The boy was fourteen years old. He was overweight, with black curly hair, thick glasses and terrible skin. There was a slight moustache on his upper lip. He was Italian; his passport gave his name as Federico Casali.

The passport officer might have looked more closely at the boy. There was some sort of alert out for a fourteen-year-old called Alex Rider. But he knew what was happening out on the main runway. Everyone knew. The whole airport was in a state of panic and right now he was distracted. He didn’t even bother comparing the face in front of him with the picture that had been circulated. What was happening outside was much more important.

Scorpia had timed it perfectly.

The boy took his passport and slouched away, through customs and out of the airport.

Alex Rider had come home.

PIZZA DELIVERY

« ^ »

Spies have to be careful where they live.

An ordinary person will choose a house or a flat because it has nice views, because they like the shape of the rooms, because it feels like home. For spies, the first consideration is security. There’s a comfortable sitting room—but will the window offer a target for a possible sniper’s bullet? A garden is fine—so long as the fence is high enough and there aren’t too many shrubs providing cover for an intruder. The neighbours, of course, will be checked. So will the postman, the milkman, the window cleaner and anyone else who comes to the front door. The front door itself may have as many as five separate locks and there will be alarm systems, night cameras and panic buttons. Someone once said that an Englishman’s home is his castle. For a spy, it can be his prison too.

Mrs Jones lived in the penthouse flat on the ninth floor of a building in Clerkenwell, not far from the old meat market at Smithfields. There were forty flats altogether and the security check run by MI6 had shown that the majority of the residents were bankers or lawyers, working in the City. Melbourne House was not cheap. Mrs Jones had two thousand square metres and two private balconies on the top floor—a great deal of space, particularly as she lived alone. On the open market it would have cost her in excess of a million pounds when she bought it seven years ago. But as it happened, MI6 had a file on the developer. The developer had seen it and had been glad to do a deal.

The flat was secure. And from the moment Alan Blunt had decided his second in command might need protection, it had become more so.

The front doors opened onto a long, rather stark reception area with a desk, two fig trees and a single lift at the far end. There were closed-circuit television cameras above the desk and outside in the street, recording everyone who entered. Melbourne House had porters working twenty-four hours, seven days a week, but Blunt had replaced them with agents from his own office. They would remain there for as long as necessary. He had also installed a metal detector next to the reception desk, identical to the sort you would find in an airport. All visitors had to pass through it.

The other residents hadn’t been particularly happy about this, but they had been assured it was only temporary.

Reluctantly they had agreed. They all knew that the woman who lived alone on the top floor worked for some government department. They also knew that it was better not to ask too many questions. The metal detector arrived; it was installed. Life went on.

It was impossible to get into Melbourne House without passing the two agents on the front desk. There was a goods entrance at the back but it was locked and alarmed. The building couldn’t be climbed. The walls had no footholds of any sort; anyway, there were four more agents on constant patrol. Finally there was an agent on duty outside Mrs Jones’s front door, and he had a clear view of the corridor in both directions. There was nowhere to hide. The agent—in radio contact with those downstairs—was armed with a high-tech, fingerprint-sensitive automatic weapon. Only he could fire it, so if—impossibly—he was overpowered, his gun would be useless.

Mrs Jones had protested about all these arrangements. It was one of the very few times she had ever argued with her superior.

“For heaven’s sake, Alan! We’re talking about Alex Rider.”

“No, Mrs Jones. We’re talking about Scorpia.”

There had been no more discussion after that.

At half past eleven that night, just hours after the deaths at Heathrow Airport, two agents were sitting behind the front desk. Both were in their twenties, dressed in the uniform of security guards. One was plump, with short, fair hair and a childish face that looked as if it would never need a shave. His name was Lloyd. He had been thrilled to get into MI6 straight from university, but he was fast becoming disappointed. This sort of work, for example. It wasn’t what he had expected. The other man was dark and looked foreign; he could have been mistaken for a Brazilian footballer. He was smoking a cigarette, even though it wasn’t allowed in the building, and this annoyed Lloyd. His name was Ramirez. The two men had started their night shift a few hours ago.

They would be there until seven the next morning, when Mrs Jones left.

They were bored. As far as they were concerned, there was no chance of anyone getting anywhere near their boss on the ninth floor. And as if to add insult to injury, they had been told to look out for a fourteen-year-old boy. They had been given a photograph of Alex Rider, and they both agreed that it was crazy. Why would a schoolboy be gunning for the deputy head of Special Operations?

“Maybe she’s his aunt,” Lloyd mused. “Maybe she’s forgotten his birthday and he’s out for revenge.” Ramirez blew a smoke ring. “You really believe that?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I don’t care. It’s just a waste of time.” They had been talking about the events at Heathrow. Even though they were part of MI6, they were too junior to be told what had really happened to the football squad. According to the radio, the players had picked up a rare disease in Nigeria. Quite how they had all managed to die at the same moment hadn’t so far been explained.

“It was probably malaria,” Lloyd guessed. “They’ve got these new mosquitoes out there.”

“Mosquitoes?”

“Super-mosquitoes. Genetically modified.”

“Yeah. Sure!”

Just then the front doors swung open and a young black man swaggered into the reception area, dressed in motorbike leathers, a helmet in one hand and a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. There was a logo on his chest, repeated on the bag: Perelli’s Pizzas Grab yourself a pizza the action The agents ran their eyes over him.

About seventeen or eighteen years old. Short, frizzy hair and a wispy beard. A gold tooth. And lots of attitude.

He was smiling crookedly as if he wasn’t just delivering fast food to a fancy flat. As if he lived here.

Lloyd stopped him. “Who are you delivering to?”

The delivery man looked taken aback. He dug into his top pocket and pulled out a grubby sheet of paper.

“Foster,” he said. “A pizza wanted on the sixth floor.”

Ramirez was also taking an interest. It was going to be a long night. Nobody had come in or out yet. “We’re going to have to take a look in that bag,” he said.

The delivery man rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me, man? It’s just a frigging pizza, that’s all. What is this place? Fort Knox or something?”

“We need to take a look inside,” Lloyd informed him.

“Yeah. OK. Jesus!”

The delivery man opened the bag and took out a litre bottle of Coca-Cola which he set upright on the desk.

“I thought you said you only had a pizza,” Lloyd complained.

“One pizza. One bottle of Coke. You want to call my office?”

The two agents exchanged glances. “What else have you got in there?” Lloyd asked.

“You want to see everything?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, we do.”

“OK! OK!”

The delivery man put down his helmet next to the bottle. He produced a handful of drinking straws, still in their paper wrappers. Next out was a rectangular card, about fifteen centimetres long.

Lloyd took it. “What’s this?”

“What does it look like?” The delivery man sighed. “I’m meant to leave it behind. It’s like … a promotion.

Can’t you read?”

“You want to come into this place, you mind your manners.”

“It’s a promotion. We leave them all over town.” Lloyd examined the card. There were pictures of pizzas on both sides and a series of special offers.

Family-sized pizza, Coke and garlic bread for just nine pounds fifty. Order before seven and get a pound off.

“You want to order pizza?” the delivery man asked.

He was rubbing the two agents up the wrong way. “No,” Lloyd said. “But we want to see the pizza you’re delivering.”

“You can’t do that, man! That’s not hygienic.”

“We don’t see it; you don’t deliver it.”

“OK. Whatever you say. You know, I’ve been delivering all over London and I’ve never had this before.” With a scowl he took out a cardboard box, warm to the touch, and laid it on the reception desk. Lloyd lifted the lid and there was the pizza—a four seasons, with ham, cheese, tomato and black olives. The smell of melted mozzarella wafted upwards.

“You want to taste it too?” the delivery man asked sarcastically.

“No. What else have you got in there?”

“There is nothing else. It’s empty.” The delivery man yanked open the canvas bag to show them. “You know, if you’re so worried about security, why don’t you deliver it yourself?” Lloyd closed the box. He knew he should do just that. But he was a secret agent, not a pizza boy! And anyway, the pizza was only going as far as the sixth floor. He could see the lift from where he was standing. There was a steel panel next to the door, marked with the letter G and then the numbers from one to nine. Each number lit up as the lift travelled and if the pizza delivery man tried to go any further, he would see. As for the stairs between the floors, they had been equipped with pressure pads and security cameras. Even the air-conditioning ducts running through the building had been alarmed.

It was safe.

“OK,” he decided. “You can take it up. You go straight to floor number six. You do not go anywhere else. Do you understand that?”

“Why should I want to go anywhere else? I’ve got pizza for someone called Foster and she’s on the sixth floor.” The delivery man reloaded the bag and walked away.

“You go through the metal detector,” Ramirez ordered.

“You got a metal detector? I thought this was a block of flats, not Heathrow Airport.” The delivery man handed his helmet to Ramirez and, with the canvas bag over his shoulder, walked through the metal frame. The machine was silent.

“There you are!” he said. “I’m clean. Now can I deliver the pizza?”

“Wait a minute!” The fair-haired agent sounded threatening. “You forgot the Coke—and your promotions card.” He picked the two items up from the reception desk and handed them over.

“Yeah. Thanks.” The delivery man began to walk towards the lift.

He had known he would be stopped.

Behind the wig and the black latex mask, Alex Rider heaved a sigh of relief. The disguise had worked. Nile had told him it would and he’d had no reason to doubt it. He had been careful to make his voice sound older, with an authentic accent. The motorbike leathers had thickened out his build and he was wearing special shoes that had added three centimetres to his height. He hadn’t been worried about his bag being searched. The moment he’d set eyes on them Alex had known that Lloyd and Ramirez were new to the game, with little field experience.

If they had taken him up on his offer and demanded to call the pizza company, Alex would have given them a business card with the phone number. But it would have been Scorpia who answered. If they had been smart, the two agents might have telephoned up to the sixth floor. But Sarah Foster—the owner of the flat—was away.

Her line had been switched from outside. The call would be redirected … again to Scorpia.

Everything had gone exactly as planned.

Alex had been taken from Malagosto to Rome, where he had boarded a flight with two Scorpia people he had never seen before. They had been with him at Heathrow, accompanying him through passport control to ensure there was no problem. How could there have been? Alex was in disguise—he had a false passport. And there seemed to be some sort of security alert at the airport—everyone was running around in circles. Doubtless it had been engineered by Scorpia.

From Heathrow he had been taken to a house in the middle of London, catching only a glimpse of the front door and the quiet, leafy road before he was whisked inside. Nile had been waiting for him there, sitting on an antique chair with his legs crossed.

“Federico!” He greeted Alex by the name on his fake passport.

Alex said little. Nile swiftly briefed him. He was given another disguise—the pizza delivery man costume—as well as everything he needed to break into Mrs Jones’s flat and kill her. How he got out again would be his problem.

“It’ll be easy,” Nile said. “You’ll just walk out the way you came in. And if there is any trouble, I’m sure you’ll cope, Alex. I have every faith in you.”

Scorpia had already reconnoitred the flat. Nile showed him the plans. They knew where the cameras were, how many pressure pads had been installed, how many agents had been commandeered. And everything had been worked out, right down to the Coke bottle which Alex had deliberately left on the reception desk and which had been handed back to him without being passed through the metal detector frame. It was simple psychology. A plastic bottle filled with liquid. How could it possibly contain anything metallic?

Alex reached the lift and stopped. This was the vital moment.

He had his back to the two agents. He was standing between them and the lift, blocking their line of vision. He had already slipped the special offers card out of the canvas bag as he walked, and he was holding it in both hands. In fact, one side of the card peeled off to reveal a thin silver plate engraved with the letter G and the numbers one to nine. It was identical to the plate beside the lift. The other side was magnetic. Casually, Alex leant forward and placed the fake panel over the real one. It was held in place immediately. Sticking it there had also activated it. Now it was just a matter of timing.

The lift doors opened and he entered. As he turned round, he saw the two agents watching him. He reached out and pressed the button for the ninth floor. The lift doors slid shut, cutting off his view. A second later, the lift jerked and moved up.

The two agents saw the numbers changing beside the lift door. Ground … one … two… What they didn’t realize was that they weren’t following the real progress of the lift. A tiny chip and a watch battery inside the silver plate were illuminating the fake numbers. The real numbers were blocked out behind.

Alex arrived at the ninth floor.

The silver panel showed he had stopped at floor six.

It had taken him thirty seconds to travel up from the ground floor. In that time, Alex had discarded the motorbike leathers to reveal, underneath, clothes that were loose, light-wearing and black: the uniform of the ninja assassin. He tugged off his wig and grabbed hold of the latex covering his face. It came off almost in one piece. Finally, he removed the gold tooth. The doors slid open. Once again he was himself.

He had already been shown a floor plan of the entire building. Mrs Jones’s flat was to the right—and there were two unforgivable lapses of security. Although there were closed-circuit television cameras in the fire escapes, there were none in the corridor. And the agent standing in front of the door could see all the way from one end to the other, but he couldn’t see into the lift. Two blind spots. Alex was about to take advantage of them both.

The agent on the ninth floor had heard the lift arrive. Like Lloyd and Ramirez downstairs, he was new to the job. He wondered why they had sent the lift up. Perhaps he should radio down and find out. Before he could make any decision, a boy with fair hair and death in his eyes stepped out. Alex Rider was holding one of the drinking straws that the two agents had seen but not examined. He had unwrapped it, and it was already between his lips. He blew.

The fukidake—or blowgun—was another lethal weapon used by the ninjas. A needle-sharp dart fired into a major artery could kill instantly. But there were also darts that had been hollowed out and filled with poison. A ninja could hit a man over a distance of twenty metres or more without making any sound at all. Alex was much closer than that. Fortunately for the agent, the dart that he fired out of the straw contained only a sleeping draught. It hit the side of his cheek. The agent opened his mouth to cry out, stared stupidly at Alex, then collapsed.

Alex knew he had to move quickly. The two agents downstairs would allow him a couple of minutes but then they would expect him to return. He grabbed the Coke bottle and opened it—not turning the lid but the bottle itself. The bottle came apart in half. Dark brown liquid poured out, soaking into the carpet. Inside the bottle was a package, wrapped in brown plastic, the same colour as the Coke. With the label covering most of it, the package had been completely invisible. Alex tore it open. There was a gun inside.

It was a Kahr P9, double-action semi-automatic, manufactured in America. It was six inches long and, with its stainless steel and polymer construction, it weighed just eighteen ounces, making it one of the smallest, lightest pistols in the world. The in-line magazine could have held seven bullets; to keep the weight down, Scorpia had provided just one. It was all Alex would need.

Carrying the canvas bag with the pizza, he went past the sleeping agent and over to Mrs Jones’s door. It had three locks, as he had been told. He lifted the pizza box lid and removed three of the black olives from the top, squeezing each one against a lock. The canvas bag had a false bottom. He opened it and trailed out three wires which he connected to the olives. A plastic box and a button were built into the bottom of the bag. Crouching down, Alex pressed it. The olives—which weren’t olives at all—exploded silently, each one a brilliant flare, burning into the locks. The sharp smell of molten metal rose in the air. The door swung open.

Holding the gun tightly, Alex walked into a large room with grey curtains draped along the far wall, a dining table with four chairs, and a suite of leather sofas. It was lit by a soft yellow glow radiating from a single lamp.

The room was modern and sparsely furnished; there was little in it that told him any more about Mrs Jones than he already knew. Even the pictures on the walls were abstracts, blobs of colour that gave nothing away. But there were clues. He saw a photograph on a shelf, a younger Mrs Jones—actually smiling—with two children, a boy and a girl aged about six and four. A nephew and a niece? They looked a lot like her.

Mrs Jones read books; she had an expensive television and a DVD player; and there was a chessboard. She was halfway through a game. But who with? Alex wondered. Nile had told him she lived alone. He heard a soft purring and noticed a Siamese cat stretched out on one of the sofas. That was a surprise. He hadn’t expected the deputy head of MI6 Special Operations to need companionship of any sort.

The purring grew louder. It was as if the cat were trying to warn its owner that he was there; and, sure enough, a door opened on the other side of the room.

“What is it, Q?”

Mrs Jones walked in. Approaching the cat, she suddenly saw Alex and stopped. “Alex!”

“Mrs Jones.”

She was wearing a grey silk dressing gown. Alex suddenly saw a snapshot of her life and the emptiness at the heart of it. She came home from work, had a shower, ate dinner on her own. Then there was the chess game …

maybe she was playing over the Internet. News at Ten on the television. And the cat.

She paused in the middle of the room. She didn’t seem alarmed. There was nothing she could do—certainly no panic button or alarm she could reach. Her hair was still wet from the shower; Alex noticed her bare feet. He raised his hand and she saw the gun.

“Did Scorpia send you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“To kill me.”

“Yes.”

She nodded as if she understood why this should be so. “They told you about your father,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Alex.”

“Sorry you killed him?”

“Sorry I didn’t tell you myself.”

She didn’t try to move; she simply stood there, facing him. Alex knew he didn’t have much time. Any moment now the lift might return to the ground floor. As soon as the agents saw he wasn’t in it, they would raise the alarm. They might already be on their way up.

“What happened to Winters?” she asked. Alex didn’t know whom she meant. “He was outside the door,” she explained.

Winters was the third agent.

“I knocked him out.”

“So you got past the two downstairs. You came up here. And you broke in.” Mrs Jones shrugged. “Scorpia have trained you well.”

“It wasn’t Scorpia who trained me, Mrs Jones: it was you.”

“But now you’ve joined Scorpia.”

Alex nodded.

“I can’t quite picture you as an assassin, Alex. I realize you don’t like me—or Alan Blunt. I can understand that.

But I know you. I don’t think you have any idea what you’ve got yourself into. I bet Scorpia were all smiles; I’m sure they were delighted to see you. But they’ve been lying to you—”

“Stop it!” Alex’s finger tightened on the trigger. He knew that she was trying to make it difficult for him. He had been warned that this was what she would do. By talking to him, by using his first name, she was reminding him that she wasn’t just a paper cut-out, a target. She was sowing doubts in his mind. And, of course, she was playing for time.

Nile had told him to do it quickly, the instant they met. Alex realized that this was already going wrong; she had already gained the upper hand—even though he was the one with the gun. He reminded himself of what Mrs Rothman had shown him in Positano. Albert Bridge. The death of his father. He was facing the woman who had given the order to shoot.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded. His voice had become a whisper. He was trying to channel the hatred through him, to give him the strength to do what he had been sent here for.

“Why did I do what, Alex?”

“You killed my father.”

Mrs Jones looked at him for a long moment and it was impossible to tell what was going on in those black eyes.

But he could see that she was making some sort of calculation. Of course, her entire life was a series of calculations—and once she’d worked out the figures, someone would usually die. The only difference here was that the death would be her own.

She seemed to come to a decision.

“Do you want me to apologize to you, Alex?” she asked, suddenly hard. “We’re talking about John Rider, a man you never knew. You never spoke to him; you have no memory of him. You know nothing about him.”

“He was still my dad!”

“He was a killer. He worked for Scorpia. Do you know how many people he murdered?” Five or six. That was what Mrs Rothman had told him.

“There was a businessman working in Peru; he was married with a son your age. There was a priest in Rio de Janeiro; he was trying to help the street children, but unfortunately he’d made too many enemies so had to be taken out. There was a British policeman. An American agent. Then there was a woman; she was about to blow the whistle on a big corporation in Sydney. She was only twenty-six, Alex, and he shot her as she was getting out of her car—”

“That’s enough!” Now Alex was holding the gun with both hands. “I don’t want to hear any of this.”

“Yes, you do, Alex. You asked me. You wanted to know why he had to be stopped. And that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? Follow in your father’s footsteps. I’m sure they’ll send you all over the world, making you kill people you know nothing about. And I’m sure you’ll be very good at it. Your father was one of the best.”

“You cheated him. He was your prisoner and you said you were letting him go. You were going to swap him for someone else. But you shot him in the back. I saw…”

“I always wondered if they filmed it,” Mrs Jones murmured. She gestured and Alex stiffened, wondering if she was trying to misdirect him. But they were still alone. The cat had gone to sleep. Nobody was approaching the room. “I’ll give you some advice,” she said. “You’ll need it if you’re going to work with Scorpia. Once you join the other side, there are no rules. They don’t believe in fair play. Nor do we.

“They had kidnapped an eighteen-year-old.” Alex remembered the figure on the bridge. “He was the son of a British civil servant. They were going to kill him; but they were going to torture him first. We had to get him back—so, yes, I arranged the exchange. But there was no way I was ever going to release your father. He was too dangerous. Too many more people would have died. And so I arranged a double-cross. Two men on a bridge. A sniper. It worked perfectly and I’m glad. You can shoot me if it really makes you feel any better, Alex.

But I’m telling you: you didn’t know your father. And if I had to do it all again, I’d do it exactly the same.”

“If you’re saying my father was so evil, what do you think that makes me?” Alex was trying to will himself to shoot. He had thought anger would give him strength, but he was more tired than angry. So now he searched for another way to persuade himself to pull the trigger. He was his father’s son. It was in his blood.

Mrs Jones took a step towards him.

“Stay where you are!” The gun was less than a metre from her, aiming straight at her head.

“I don’t think you’re a killer, Alex. You never knew your father. Why do you have to be like him? Do you think every child is ‘made’ the moment they’re born? I think you have a choice…”

“I never chose to work for you.”

“Didn’t you? After Stormbreaker you could have walked away. We never needed to meet again. But if you remember, you chose to get tangled up with drug dealers and we had to bail you out. And then there was Wimbledon. We didn’t make you go undercover. You agreed to go—and if you hadn’t locked a Chinese gangster in a deep freeze, we wouldn’t have had to send you to America.”

“You’re twisting everything!”

“And finally Damian Cray. You went after him on your own and we’re very grateful to you, Alex. But you ask me—what do I think you are? I think you’re too smart to pull that trigger. You’re not going to shoot me. Now or ever.”

“You’re wrong,” Alex said. She was lying to him, he knew that. She had always lied to him. He could do this.

He had to do it. He held the gun steady. He let the hatred take him. And fired.

The air in front of him seemed to explode into fragments.

Mrs Jones had tricked him. She had been tricking him all along, and he hadn’t seen it. The room was divided into two parts. A huge pane of transparent, bulletproof glass ran from one corner to the other, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. She had been on one side; he had been on the other. In the half-light it had been invisible, but now the glass frosted, a thousand cracks spiralling outwards from the dent made by the bullet.

Mrs Jones had almost disappeared from sight, her face broken up as if she had become a smashed picture of herself. At the same time, an alarm rang, the door flew open and Alex was grabbed and thrown sideways onto the sofa. The gun went flying. Somebody shouted something in his ear but he couldn’t understand the words.

The cat snarled and leapt past him. His arms were wrenched behind him. A knee pressed into his back. A bag was pulled over his head and he felt cold steel against his wrists. There was a click. He could no longer move his hands.

Now he could make out several voices in the room.

“Are you all right, Mrs Jones?”

“We’re sorry, ma’am…”

“We’ve got the car waiting outside…”

“Don’t hurt him!”

Alex was jerked off the sofa with his hands cuffed behind him. He felt wretched and sick. He had failed Scorpia. He had failed his father. He had failed himself.

He didn’t cry out. He didn’t resist. Limp and unmoving, he allowed himself to be dragged out of the room, back down the corridor and into the night.

COBRA

« ^ »

The room was a bare white box, designed to intimidate. Alex had measured out the space: ten paces one way, four across. There was a narrow bunk with no sheets or blankets, and, behind a partition, a toilet. But that was all. The door had no handle and fitted so flush to the wall that it was almost invisible. There was no window.

Light came from behind a square panel in the ceiling and was controlled from outside.

Alex had no idea how long he had been here. His watch had been removed.

After he had been taken from Mrs Jones’s flat, he had been bundled into a car. The black cloth bag was still over his head. He had no idea where he was going. They drove at speed for what seemed like half an hour, then slowed down. Alex felt his stomach sink and knew they were heading down some sort of ramp. Had they taken him to the basement of the Liverpool Street HQ? He had been here once before but this time he was to be given no chance to take his bearings. The car stopped. The door opened and he was grabbed and dragged out. Nobody spoke to him. He was marched along pinned between two men—and down a flight of stairs. Then his hands were unlocked, and the bag was pulled off. He just had time to glimpse Lloyd and Ramirez—the two agents from the reception desk—as they walked out. Then the door closed and he was on his own.

He lay on his back, remembering the final moments in the flat. He was amazed that he hadn’t seen the glass barrier until it was too late. Had Mrs Jones’s voice been amplified in some way? It didn’t matter. He had tried to kill her. He had finally found the strength to pull the trigger, proving that Scorpia had been right about him all along.

He was a killer. Do you know how many people he murdered?

Alex remembered what Mrs Jones had said about his father. She was the one who had given the order for John Rider’s death; she had arranged it. She deserved to die.

Or so he tried to persuade himself. But the worst thing was, he half understood what she meant. Suppose his father hadn’t been killed on Albert Bridge. Suppose Alex had grown up with him and somehow found out what his father did. How would he have felt about it? Would he have been able to forgive him?

Sitting on his own in this cruel white room, Alex thought back to the moment when he had fired the gun. He felt again the shudder in his hand. Saw the invisible glass screen crack but not break. Good old Smithers! It was almost certainly the MI6 gadget master who had fixed it up. And, despite everything, Alex was glad. He was glad he hadn’t killed Mrs Jones.

He wondered what would happen to him now. Would MI6 prosecute? More likely, they would interrogate him.

They would want to know about Malagosto, about Mrs Rothman and Nile. But maybe after that, at last, they would leave him alone. After what had happened, they would never trust him again.

He fell asleep—not just exhausted but drained. It was a black and empty sleep, without dreams, without any feeling of comfort or warmth.

The sound of the door opening woke him up. He opened his eyes and blinked. It was disconcerting having no idea of the time. He could have slept for a few hours or all night. He wasn’t feeling rested; there was a crick in his neck. But without a window it was impossible to say. “You need the toilet?”

“No.”

“Then come with me.”

The man at the door wasn’t Lloyd or Ramirez or anyone Alex had ever met at MI6. He had a blank, uninteresting face and Alex knew that if they met the next day, he would already have forgotten him. He got off the bunk and walked towards the door, suddenly nervous. Nobody knew he was here. Not Tom, not Jack Starbright … nobody. MI6 could make him disappear. Permanently. Nobody would ever find out what had happened to him. Maybe that was what they had in mind.

But there was nothing he could do. He followed the agent along a curving corridor with a steel mesh floor and fat pipes following the line of the ceiling. He could have been in the engine room of a ship.

“I’m hungry,” he complained. He was. But he also wanted to show this agent that he wasn’t afraid. “I’m taking you to breakfast.” Breakfast! So he had slept through the night. “Don’t worry,” Alex said. “You can drop me off at a McDonald’s.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible. In here…” They had arrived at a second door and Alex went through into a strange, curving room—obviously they were still underground. There were thick glass panels built into the ceiling and he could see the forms of people—commuters—walking overhead. The room was beneath a pavement. Feet of different sizes and shapes touched, briefly, against the glass. Above them the commuters were like ghosts, twisting, rippling, moving soundlessly by as they made their way to work. There was a table on which were arranged fruit salad, cereal, milk, croissants and coffee. Alex welcomed the sight of breakfast but lost some of his appetite when he saw whom he was supposed to share it with. Alan Blunt was waiting for him, sitting in a chair on the other side of the table, dressed in yet another of his neat, grey suits. He really did look like the bank manager that he had once pretended to be, a man in his fifties, more comfortable with figures and statistics than with human beings.

“Good morning, Alex,” he said.

Alex didn’t reply.

“You can leave us, Burns. Thank you.”

The agent nodded and backed out. The door swung shut. Alex approached the table and sat down.

“Are you hungry, Alex? Please. Help yourself.”

“No thanks.” Alex was hungry. But he wouldn’t feel comfortable eating in front of this man.

“Don’t be stupid. You need your breakfast. You have a very busy day ahead of you.” Blunt waited for Alex to respond. Alex said nothing. “Do you realize how much trouble you’re in?” Blunt demanded.

“Perhaps I will have some Weetabix after all,” Alex said.

He helped himself. Blunt watched him coldly. “We have very little time,” Blunt said as Alex ate. “I have some questions for you. You will answer them fully and honestly.”

“And if I don’t?”

“What do you think? Do you think I’ll give you a truth serum or something? You’ll answer my questions because it’s in your interest to do so. Right now, I don’t think you have any idea what’s at stake. But believe me when I tell you that this meeting is vital. We have to know what you know. More lives than you can imagine may depend on it.”

Alex lowered his spoon and nodded. “Go on.”

“You were recruited by Julia Rothman?”

“You know who she is?”

“Of course we do.”

“Yes. I was.”

“You were taken to Malagosto?”

“Yes.”

“And you were sent to kill Mrs Jones.”

Alex felt a need to defend himself. “She killed my dad.”

“That’s not the issue.”

“Not for you.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes. I was sent to kill Mrs Jones.”

“Good.” Blunt nodded. “I need to know who brought you to London. What you were told. And what you were to do when you completed your mission.”

Alex hesitated. If he told Blunt all this, he knew he would be betraying Scorpia. But suddenly he didn’t care. He had been drawn into a world where everyone betrayed everyone. He just wanted to get out.

“They had a layout of her flat,” he said. “They knew everything, except for the glass screen. All I had to do was wait for her to appear. Two of their agents took me through Heathrow. We came in as an Italian family; they never told me their real names. I had a fake passport.”

“Where did they take you?”

“I don’t know. A house somewhere. I didn’t get a chance to see the address.” Alex paused. “Where is Mrs Jones?”

“She didn’t want to see you.” Alex nodded. “I can understand that.”

“After you killed her, what were you supposed to do?”

“They gave me a phone number. I was meant to ring it the moment I’d done what they wanted. But they’ll know you’ve got me now. I expect they were watching the flat.” There was a long silence. Blunt was examining Alex minutely, like a scientist with an interesting lab specimen.

Alex squirmed uncomfortably in his chair.

“Do you want to work for Scorpia?” Blunt demanded.

“I don’t know.” Alex shrugged. “I’m not sure it’s any different to working for you.”

“You don’t believe that. You can’t believe that.”

“I don’t want to work for either of you!” Alex cut in. “I just want to go back to school. I don’t want to see any of you ever again.”

“I wish that were possible, Alex.” For once, Blunt actually sounded sincere. “Let me tell you something that may surprise you. It’s been six … seven months since we first met. In that time, you’ve proved yourself to be remarkably useful. You’ve been more successful than I could possibly have calculated. And yet, in truth, I wish we had never met.”

“Why?”

“Because there has to be something wrong—seriously wrong—when the security of the entire country rests on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old boy. Believe me, I would be very glad to let you walk out of here. You don’t belong in my world any more than I belong in yours. But I can’t let you go back to Brookland, because in approximately thirty hours every child in that school could be dead. Thousands of children in London could have joined them. This is what your friends in Scorpia have promised, and I have no doubt at all that they mean what they say.”

“Thousands?” Alex had gone pale. He hadn’t expected anything like this. What had he walked into?

“Maybe more. Maybe many thousands.”

“How?”

“We don’t know. You may. All I can tell you now is that Scorpia have made a series of demands. We cannot give them what they want. And they’re going to make us pay a heavy price.”

“What do you want from me?” Alex asked. All the strength seemed to have drained out of him.

“Scorpia have made one mistake. They’ve sent you to us. I want to know everything you’ve seen—everything Julia Rothman told you. We still have no idea what we’re up against, Alex. You may at least be able to give us a clue.”

Thousands of children in London.

Assassination, Alex. It’s part of what we do.

That was what she had said.

This was what she meant.

“I don’t know anything,” Alex said, his head bowed.

“You may know more than you think. You’re all that stands between Scorpia and an unimaginable bloodbath. I know what you think of me; I know how you feel about MI6. But are you willing to help?” Alex slowly raised his head. He examined the man sitting opposite him and saw something he would never have believed. Alan Blunt was afraid. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

“Good. Then finish your breakfast, have a shower and get changed. The prime minister has called a meeting of Cobra. I want you to attend.”

Cobra.

The acronym stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, which is where, at 10 Downing Street, the meetings take place. Cobra is an emergency council, the government’s ultimate response to any major crisis.

The prime minister is, of course, present when Cobra sits. So are most of his senior ministers, his director of communications, his chief of staff and representatives from the police, the army and the intelligence and security services. Finally there are the civil servants, men in dark suits with long and meaningless job titles.

Everything that happens, everything that’s said, is recorded, minuted and then filed away for thirty years under the Official Secrets Act. Politics may be called a game, but Cobra is deadly serious. Decisions made here can bring down a government. The wrong decision could destroy the entire country.

Alex Rider had been shown into another room and left to shower and change into fresh clothes. He recognized the Pepe jeans and World Cup rugby shirt: they were his own. Somebody must have been round to his home to fetch them, and seeing them laid out on a chair he felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t spoken to Jack since he had left for Venice. He wondered if anyone from MI6 had told her what was happening. He doubted it. MI6 never told anyone anything unless they had to.

But as he pulled on the jeans, he felt something rustle in one of the back pockets. He dipped his hand in and took out a folded sheet of paper. He opened it and recognized Jack’s handwriting.

Alex,

What have you got yourself mixed up in this time? Two secret agents (spies) waiting downstairs.

Suits and sunglasses. Think they’re smart, but I bet they don’t look in the jackets.

Thinking of you. Take care of yourself. Try and come home in one piece.

Love you, Jack.

That made him smile. It seemed it had been a long time since anything had happened to cheer him up.

As he had thought, the cell and interrogation room were beneath the MI6 headquarters. He was led out to a car park where a navy blue Jaguar XJ6 was waiting, and the two of them were driven up the ramp and out into Liverpool Street itself. Alex settled into the leather seat. He found it strange to be sitting so close to the head of MI6 Special Operations without a table or a desk between them. Blunt was in no mood to talk.

“You’ll be brought up to date at the meeting,” he muttered briefly. “But while we’re driving there, I want you to think of everything that happened to you while you were with Scorpia. Everything you overheard. If I had more time, I’d debrief you myself. But Cobra won’t wait.”

After that he buried himself in a report which he took from his briefcase, and Alex might as well have been alone. He looked out of the window as the chauffeur drove them west, across London. It was quarter past nine.

People were still hurrying to work. Shops were opening. On one side of the glass, life was going on as normal.

But once again Alex was on the wrong side, sitting in this car with this man, heading into God knows what.

He watched as they arrived at Charing Cross and stopped at the lights at Trafalgar Square. Blunt was still reading. Suddenly there was something Alex wanted to know.

“Is Mrs Jones married?” he asked.

Blunt looked up. “She was.”

“In her flat I saw a photograph of her with two children.”

“They were hers. They’d be about your age now. But she lost them.”

“They died?”

“They were taken.”

Alex digested this. Blunt’s replies were leaving him hardly any the wiser. “Are you married?” he asked.

Blunt turned away. “I don’t discuss my personal life.”

Alex shrugged. Frankly he was surprised Blunt had one.

They drove down Whitehall and then turned right, through the gates that were already open to receive them.

The car stopped and Alex got out, his head spinning. He was standing in front of probably the most famous front door in the world. And the door was open. A policeman stepped forward to usher him in. Blunt had already disappeared ahead. Alex followed.

The first surprise was how large 10 Downing Street was inside. It was two or three times bigger than he had expected, opening out in all directions, with high ceilings and a corridor stretching improbably into the distance. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Works of art, lent by major galleries, lined the walls.

Blunt had been greeted by a tall, grey-haired man in an old-fashioned suit and striped tie. The man had the sort of face that would not have looked out of place in a Victorian portrait. It belonged to another world, and like an old painting it seemed to have faded. Only the eyes, small and dark, showed any life. They flickered over Alex and seemed to know him at once.

“So this is Alex Rider,” the man said. He held out a hand. “My name is Graham Adair.” He was looking at Alex as if he knew him—but Alex was sure the two of them had never met before.

“Sir Graham is permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office,” Blunt explained.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you, Alex. I have to say, I’m pleased to meet you. I owe you a great deal. More, I think, than you can imagine.”

“Thanks.” Alex was puzzled. He didn’t know what Sir Graham meant, and wondered if the man had been involved in some way in one of his previous assignments.

“I understand you’re joining us at Cobra. I’m very glad—although I should warn you that there may be one or two people there who know less about you and may resent your presence.”

“I’m used to it,” Alex said.

“I’m sure. Well, come this way. I hope you can help us. We’re up against something very different and none of us is quite sure what to do.”

Alex followed the permanent secretary along the corridor, through an archway and into a large, wood-panelled room with at least forty people gathered around a huge conference table. Alex’s first impression was that they were all middle-aged and, with only a few exceptions, male and white. Then he realized how many faces he recognized. The prime minister was sitting at the head of the table. The deputy prime minister—fat and jowly—

was next to him. The foreign secretary was fiddling nervously with his tie. Another man who might have been the defence secretary was opposite him. Most of the men were in suits but there were also uniforms—army and police. Everyone in the room had a thick file in front of them. Two elderly women, dressed in black suits and white shirts, sat in the corners, their fingers poised over what looked like miniature typewriters.

Blunt waved Alex to an empty chair at the table and sat down next to him. Sir Graham took his seat on the other side. Alex noticed a few heads turn in his direction but nobody said anything.

The prime minister stood and Alex felt the same buzz he’d experienced when he first met Damian Cray—the realization that he was seeing, close up, a face known all over the world. The prime minister looked older and shabbier than he did on television. Here there was no make-up, no subtle lighting. He looked defeated.

“Good morning,” he said, and everyone in the room fell silent.

The meeting of Cobra had begun.

REMOTE CONTROL

« ^ »

They had been talking for three hours.

The prime minister had read out the contents of Scorpia’s letter, and copies had been placed in every file around the table. Alex had read his with a feeling of sick disbelief. Eighteen innocent people had already died and nobody in the room had any idea how it had happened. Would Scorpia go ahead with the threat to target children in London? Alex was in no doubt, but nobody had asked his opinion and the first hour had been taken up discussing the question over and over again. At least half the people in the room thought it was a bluff. The other half wanted to put pressure on the Americans—to make them agree to Scorpia’s demands.

But there was no chance of that happening. The foreign secretary had already met with the American ambassador. The prime minister had spent several hours on the telephone with the president of the United States. This was the American position: Scorpia were asking the impossible. The Americans considered their demands to be laughable, quite possibly insane. The president had offered the help of the FBI to track Scorpia down. Two hundred American agents were already on their way to London. But there was nothing more he could do. Britain was on its own.

This response caused a great deal of anger at Cobra. The deputy prime minister crashed his fist against the table.

“It’s incredible! It’s a bloody scandal. We help the Americans; we’re their closest allies. And now they turn round and tell us to jump in the lake!”

“That’s not quite what they’ve said.” The foreign secretary was more cautious. “And I don’t know what else they could do. The president has a point. These demands are impossible.”

“They could try to negotiate!”

“But the letter says there will be no negotiation—”

“That’s what it says. But they could still try!” Alex listened as the two men argued, neither really listening to what the other had to say. So this was how government worked!

Next up was a medical officer with a report on how the footballers had died. “They were all poisoned,” he announced. He was a short man, bald, with a round, pink face. He had put on a crumpled suit for the meeting but somehow Alex could tell he spent most of his life in a white coat. “We found traces of cyanide which seem to have been delivered straight to the heart. The amounts were very small—but they were enough.”

“How were they administered?” someone—a police chief—asked.

“We don’t yet know. They hadn’t been shot, that’s for sure. There were no unexplained perforations on their skin and there’s only one thing we’ve come up with that’s rather odd. We found tiny traces of gold in their blood.”

“Gold?” The director of communications spoke for the first time and Alex noticed him sitting next to the prime minister. He was the smallest—and in many ways seemed to be the least imposing—man in the room. And yet, at his single word, every head turned.

“Yes, Mr Kellner. We don’t believe the gold particles contributed to their death. But every single one of the players was the same…”

“Well, it all seems pretty obvious to me,” Kellner said, and there was a sneer in his voice. He stood up and looked around the crowded table with cold, superior eyes. Alex disliked him at once. He had seen kids like him at Brookland. Small and spiteful, always winding people up. But running in tears to the teachers the moment they got whacked. “All these people died at exactly the same time,” he said. “So it’s pretty obvious they were all poisoned at the same time. When could that have been? Well, obviously when they were on the plane! I’ve already checked. The flight lasted six hours and thirty-five minutes and they were given a meal shortly after they left Lagos. There must have been cyanide in the food and it kicked in just after they arrived at Heathrow.”

“Are you saying there is no secret weapon?” the deputy prime minister asked. He blinked heavily. “What do Scorpia mean by Invisible Sword then?”

“It’s a trick. They’re trying to make us think they can kill people by some sort of remote control…” Remote control. That meant something to Alex. He remembered something he had seen when he’d been inside the Widow’s Palace. What was it?

“…but there is no Invisible Sword. They’re just trying to frighten us.”

“I’m not sure I agree with you, Mr Kellner.” The medical officer seemed nervous of the director of communications. “They could all have taken the poison at the same time, I suppose. But each one of those men had his own metabolism. The poison would have reacted more quickly in some than in others.”

“They were all athletes. Their metabolisms would have been more or less the same.”

“No, Mr Kellner. I don’t agree. There were also two coaches and a manager…”

“To hell with them. There is no Invisible Sword. These people are playing games with us. They make demands they know the Americans can’t possibly meet, and they threaten us with something that simply isn’t going to happen.”

“That isn’t normally Scorpia’s way.”

Alex was surprised to see that it was Blunt who had spoken. The head of MI6 Special Operations was sitting on his left. His voice was quiet and very even.

“We’ve had dealings with them before and they’ve never yet made a hollow threat.”

“You were at Heathrow, Mr Blunt. What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s very helpful, isn’t it? Secret intelligence comes to the table and doesn’t have any intelligence to offer. And since you’re here”—Mark Kellner seemed to have noticed Alex for the first time—“I’d be fascinated to know why you’ve brought along a schoolboy. Is he your son?”

“This is Alex Rider.” This time it was Sir Graham Adair who spoke. His dark eyes settled on the director of communications. “As you know, Alex has helped us on several occasions. He also happens to be the last person to have had contact with Scorpia.”

“Really? And how was that?”

“I sent him to Venice, undercover,” Blunt said, and Alex was surprised at how fluently he lied.

“Scorpia have a training school on the island of Malagosto and we needed to know certain details. Alex trained there for a while.”

One of the politicians coughed. “Is that really necessary, Mr Blunt?” he asked. “I mean, if it was known that the government was using school-age children for this sort of work, it might not look very good for us.”

“I hardly think that’s relevant right now,” Blunt retorted.

The police chief looked puzzled. He was an elderly man in a blue uniform with brightly polished silver buttons.

“If you know about Scorpia, if you even know where to find them, why can’t you take them out?” he asked.

“Why can’t we just send in the SAS and kill the whole lot of them?”

“The Italian government might not be too amused to have their territory invaded,” Blunt replied. “And anyway, it’s not as simple as that. Scorpia’s a worldwide organization. We know some of the leaders, but not all of them.

If we eliminate one branch, another one will simply take over the operation. And then they’ll come for revenge.

Scorpia never forgive or forget. You have to remember: they may be the ones who are threatening us, but they’ll be working for a client and it is the client who is our real enemy.”

“And what did Alex Rider find out when he was on Malagosto?” Kellner sneered. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be knocked off his pedestal. Not by Alan Blunt. And certainly not by a fourteen-year-old boy.

Alex felt all eyes on him. He shifted uncomfortably. “Mrs Rothman took me out for dinner and she mentioned Invisible Sword,” he said. “But she wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

“Who exactly is Julia Rothman?” Kellner demanded.

“She sits on the executive board of Scorpia,” Blunt said. “She is one of nine senior members. Alex met her when he was in Italy.”

“Well, that’s very helpful,” Kellner said. “But if that’s all Alex has to offer, we really don’t need him here any more.”

“There was something about a cold chain,” Alex added, remembering the conversation he had overheard at the Widow’s Palace. “I don’t know what that means, but it may have something to do with it.” In one corner of the room a young, smartly dressed woman with long, black hair sat up in her chair and looked at Alex with sudden interest.

But Kellner had already moved on. “We’re being asked to believe that Scorpia can somehow poison thousands of children and arrange for them all to keel over at exactly four o’clock tomorrow afternoon…”

“They’ll all be coming out of school,” one of the army men said. “It can’t be done! The football squad was a stunt. They want to panic us into going public with this, and if we do that the entire credibility of the government will be undermined. Maybe that’s what they want.”

“Then what are you suggesting we do?” Sir Graham Adair asked. The permanent secretary was trying hard to keep the contempt out of his voice. He remembered what he had seen at Heathrow Airport; he didn’t want to see it again all over London.

“Ignore them. Tell them to get lost.”

“We can’t!” Like almost everyone else, the foreign secretary was clearly afraid of Kellner. But he was determined to have his say. “We can’t take that risk!”

“There is no risk. Think about it for a minute. The footballers were poisoned with cyanide. They were all on the same plane at the same time. It wasn’t difficult. But if you wanted to poison thousands of kids, how could you possibly do it?”

“Injections,” Alex said. Everyone looked at him again. He had worked it out in a split second. It had suddenly come to him, as if spoken by someone else. He had been thinking about a trip he had once made to South America, a long time ago. And then he had remembered what he had seen at Consanto. The little test tubes. All that machinery … everything utterly sterile. What was it for? Now he understood the link with Dr Liebermann.

And there was something else. When he was in the restaurant with Julia Rothman, she had made a joke about the scientist.

You could say his death was a shot in the arm for us all. A shot in the arm. An injection. “Every schoolchild in London gets injected at some point,” Alex said. He was aware that he was now the centre of attention. The prime minister, half the Cabinet, the police and army chiefs, the civil servants—all the most powerful people in the country were here, in this room. He was surrounded by them. And they were all listening to him. “When I was at Consanto, I saw test tubes with liquid in them,” he went on. “And there were trays with what looked like eggs.”

“Some vaccines are grown in eggs,” the medical officer explained. “And Consanto do supply vaccines all over the world.” He nodded as he was struck by another thought. “That would also explain what you heard. Of course! The cold chain. It refers to the transportation of vaccines. They have to be kept at a certain temperature all the time. If you break the chain, the vaccine is no use.”

“Go on, Alex,” Sir Graham Adair urged. “I saw them kill a man called Dr Liebermann,” Alex said. “He worked at Consanto and Julia Rothman told me she’d paid him a lot of money to help them with something. Maybe he put something in a whole load of vaccines. Some sort of poison. It would be injected into school kids. There are always injections at the start of term…”

Adair glanced at the medical officer, who nodded. “It’s true. There were BCG injections in London last week.”

“Last week!” Mark Kellner cut in. His tone of voice hadn’t changed; he wasn’t accepting any of it. “If they were injected with cyanide a week ago, how come they haven’t all dropped dead already? How is this Julia Rothman going to arrange for the poison to work tomorrow afternoon on the dot of four?” A few heads around the table nodded in agreement and he went on. “And I don’t suppose the football squad had BCG injections while they were away. Or are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”

“Of course they’d have had injections,” the permanent secretary snapped, and Alex saw that he was no longer able to hide his anger. He wasn’t even trying. “They were in Nigeria. They wouldn’t have been allowed into the country without being inoculated.”

“Yes!” The medical officer couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “They’d have been inoculated against yellow fever.”

“A month ago!” Kellner insisted.

“Then the question isn’t how did they administer the poison,” Sir Graham said; “the question is—how do they prevent it working until a time of their choosing? That’s the secret of Invisible Sword.”

“What else can you tell us, Alex?” Blunt asked.

“You were talking about remote control,” Alex said. “Well, Mrs Rothman kept a Siberian tiger in her office. It attacked me and I thought I was going to be killed—”

“Are you seriously asking us to believe this?” Kellner enquired.

Alex ignored him. “But then someone came in and pressed a button on what looked like a remote control device. You know, for a TV. The tiger just lay down and went back to sleep.”

“Nanoshells.”

The young woman who was sitting in a corner and who had been examining Alex earlier had spoken the single word. She obviously hadn’t been considered important enough to be given a place at the table, but now she stood up and walked forward. She looked about thirty—after Alex, the youngest person in the room—slim and pale, wearing a suit with a white shirt and a silver chain around her neck.

“What the hell are nanoshells?” the deputy prime minister demanded. “And, for that matter, who are you?”

“This is Dr Rachel Stephenson,” the medical officer said. “She’s a writer and a researcher … a specialist in the field of nanotechnology.”

“Oh, so now we’re moving into science fiction,” Kellner complained.

“There’s no fiction about it,” Dr Stephenson replied, refusing to be intimidated. “Nanotechnology is about manipulating matter at the atomic level and it’s already out there in more ways than you would believe.

Universities, food companies, drug agencies and, of course, the military are all spending billions of pounds a year on development programmes and they all agree. In less time than you think, the life of every human being on this planet is going to change for ever. There are some amazing breakthroughs on the way and if you don’t believe that, it’s time you woke up.”

Kellner took this as a personal insult. “I don’t see—” he began.

“Tell us about nanoshells,” the prime minister said, and it occurred to Alex that it was a while since he had spoken.

“Yes, sir.” Dr Stephenson collected her thoughts. “I was already thinking about nanoshells when I heard about the gold particles, but Alex has made it all clear. It’s quite complicated and I know we don’t have a lot of time, but I’ll try to make it as simple as I can.

“Injections must be the answer. What these people have done is to inject first the football players and then goodness knows how many children with gold-coated nanoshells.” She paused. “What we’re talking about here are tiny bullets—and by tiny I mean about a hundred nanometres across. Just so you know, one nanometre is a billionth of a metre. Or to put it another way, a single hair on your head is about one hundred thousand nanometres wide.

So each one of these bullets is a thousand times smaller than the tip of a human hair.” She leant forward, resting her hands on the table. Nobody moved. Alex couldn’t hear anyone so much as breathe.

“What might these bullets consist of?” Dr Stephenson continued. “Well, it’s anyone’s guess. But if you imagine a Malteser, it would be a bit like that.

The inside would be what we call a polymer bead and might be made of something not very different to a supermarket carrier bag. Don’t forget, though, I’m only talking about a few molecules. The polymer would hold everything together and it would be quite easy to mix in the cyanide. When the polymer and the cyanide are released, the person dies.

“And what stops it being released? Well, that’s the chocolate on the outside of the Malteser—except what we’re talking about here is gold. A solid gold shell, but so tiny you could never see it. All of this would have been done by Dr Liebermann, the man who was killed, using highly advanced colloidal chemistry.” She stopped again. “I’m sorry. I’m probably making it sound more complicated than it really is. Basically, what you’ve got is a bullet with the poison inside, and after that you fix a protein onto the outside, onto the shell.”

“What does the protein do?” someone asked. “It guides the whole thing, a bit like a heat-seeking missile. It would take too long to explain how it works, but proteins can find their way around the human body. They know exactly where to go. And once the nanoshell was injected, the right protein would direct it straight to the heart.”

“How many of these nanoshells would you need to inject?” Blunt asked.

“That’s impossible to answer,” Dr Stephenson replied. “They’d be sitting right inside the heart. Once the poison was released, it would act almost immediately and you wouldn’t need very much of it. As a matter of fact, we’ve studied the effect of nanoshells on the human body, developing them as a cure for cancer. Of course, this is rather different because Scorpia are only interested in killing, but let me see…” She thought for a moment.

“There’s not very much liquid in a BCG injection. Only about a fiftieth of a teaspoon. At a guess, I’d say you’d only need to add one part cyanide for every one hundred parts of the actual vaccine.” She worked it out and nodded. “That adds up to about one billion nanoshells,” she said. “Just enough to cover the head of a pin.”

“But you said that the poison is safe. It’s protected by the gold.”

“Yes. But I’m afraid that’s where these people have been so very clever. The polymer and poison mix is contained in the gold. It’s sitting inside the heart and it’s not doing anyone any harm. If you leave it alone, it’ll just pass out of the system in a little while and nobody will be any the wiser.

“But Scorpia can break up the gold. And they can do it, like Alex said, by remote control. Have you ever put an egg in a microwave? After a few moments, it explodes. It’s exactly the same here. It could be microwave technology that they’re planning to use.” Stephenson shook her head, her long hair swaying. “No. Microwaves would be too low frequency. I’m sorry. I’m not really an expert on plasmon resonance.” She hesitated. “A terahertz beam might be the answer.”

“I’m sorry, Dr Stephenson,” the foreign secretary said, “but you’re losing me. What are terahertz beams?”

“They’re not much used yet. They sit between the infrared and the microwave bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and they’re being developed for medical imaging and satellite communications.”

“So you’re saying that Scorpia could send out a signal using a satellite and it would break up the gold, releasing the poison…”

“Yes, sir. Except they wouldn’t actually need to use a satellite. In fact, they couldn’t. The beams wouldn’t be strong enough. If you ask me, when those poor men got off the plane at Heathrow, there must have been some sort of satellite dish erected. It was probably put there a long time ago, on one of the buildings or perhaps up a mast, and they’ll have taken it down by now. But all they had to do was throw a switch, the terahertz beams would have broken down the gold and … well, you know the result.”

“Is there any chance that the nanoshells could be broken up accidentally?” Sir Graham Adair asked.

“No. That’s what’s so brilliant about the whole thing. You’d need to know the exact thickness of the gold. That tells you what frequency to use. It’s just like when you shatter a glass by singing the right note. If you ask me, Alex saw that same technology at work with that tiger. The animal must have had some sort of sedative in its bloodstream. They just had to press a button and it fell asleep.”

“So if they’re not using a satellite, what are we looking for?”

“A saucer. It would look much the same as a satellite TV dish, only bigger. They’ve said they’re targeting London kids, so it will have to be somewhere in London. Probably mounted on the side of an office building.

They may call it Invisible Sword, but I’d say it’s more like invisible arrows being fired out of satellite dishes.

They shoot out in a straight line.”

“And how long will it take for the gold to break up once the switch is thrown?”

“A few minutes. Maybe less. Once the gold breaks, the children will die.” Dr Stephenson backed away from the table and sat down again. She had nothing more to say. Immediately everyone began to speak at once. Alex noticed some of the civil servants talking into mobile phones. The two women in black and white were typing furiously, trying to keep up with the babble of conversation. Meanwhile, the permanent secretary had leant across Alex, talking quickly and quietly to Alan Blunt. Alex saw the spy chief nod. Then the prime minister held up a hand for silence.

It took a few moments for the clamour to die down.

The prime minister glanced at his director of communications, who was looking down, biting his nails.

Everyone was waiting for him to speak.

“All right,” Kellner said. “We know what we’re up against. We know about Invisible Sword. The question is—

what are we going to do?”

DECISION TIME

« ^ »

You have to evacuate London.”

It was Sir Graham Adair who made the suggestion. This was the result of his swift conversation with Alan Blunt. His voice was soft and measured, but Alex could sense the tension. The permanent secretary was as brittle as ice.

“Scorpia has planned this at exactly the right moment. Four o’clock. Thousands of children will be out of school—on their way home. We have no way of knowing how far these terahertz beams can reach. There may be several dishes, mounted on buildings throughout the capital … near schools, near tube stations. No child in London will be safe. But as Dr Stephenson has just told us, provided they don’t come into contact with the beams, the poison will pass out of their systems eventually. We can keep them out of the city for as long as it takes.”

“An evacuation on that scale?” The police chief shook his head. “Do you have any idea how much organization that will take? All of this is meant to be happening at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. We couldn’t possibly arrange everything in time.”

“You could try…”

“Forgive me, Sir Graham. But what reason, exactly, are you going to give? You’ll be closing down every school in the capital. Whole families will have to move. Where are they going to go? What are you going to tell them?”

“We’ll tell them the truth.”

“I don’t think so.” Alex wasn’t surprised that the director of communications had chosen this moment to re-enter the conversation. “You tell the British public that their kiddies have all been injected with some sort of nanoparticles, you’ll start a panic that will turn into a mass stampede,” he said.

“Better that than the streets filled with corpses,” Blunt muttered.

“And how do you know that Scorpia won’t throw the switch anyway?” Kellner continued. “If you go on television and announce you’re evacuating the capital, maybe they’ll decide to go ahead with their threat a few hours early.”

“There is no alternative,” Sir Graham said. “We can’t leave the children in danger. If we do nothing…” He shook his head. “The nation would never forgive us.”

Alex glanced at the prime minister sitting at the far end of the table. He seemed to have shrunk in the last few minutes. There was even less colour in his face than there had been when the meeting started. The deputy prime minister was chewing furiously; the foreign secretary was polishing his glasses. Everyone was waiting for the three men to make a decision, but they looked completely out of their depth. The prime minister glanced from Kellner to Adair.

At last he spoke. “I think Mark is right.”

“Prime Minister…” Sir Graham began. “If we had more time, maybe we could do something. But we have just over twenty-four hours. And it’s true. If we go public, we’ll terrify people. We’ll also alert Scorpia. Thanks to

—”—the prime minister nodded briefly in Alex’s direction but seemed unwilling to mention his name—“we know what this weapon is that we’re fighting. Invisible Sword. That’s the only advantage we have. We can’t risk losing that by going on TV.”

“So what are we going to do?” the deputy prime minister demanded.

Mark Kellner turned to Dr Stephenson. There was a dull light in his eyes, magnified by his round, wire-framed glasses. Alex knew his mind was already made up. “Satellite dishes,” he said.

“Yes.” Dr Stephenson nodded.

“You said they would be quite big. Would we be able to recognize them?” Dr Stephenson thought briefly. “I suppose they could be disguised,” she said slowly. “Lots of buildings in London have satellite dishes for one reason or another. But I’m sure it would be possible to find out if they weren’t meant to be there.”

“And you think they’d have to be high up.”

“Yes, probably. I’d say about one hundred metres. But that’s only a rough guess.”

“That would make it easier.” Kellner had forgotten that only a few minutes ago he had doubted the very existence of Invisible Sword. Once again he was in control. “If you’re right, we’re looking for unauthorized satellite dishes that have been mounted on any tall structures in the last two or three months,” he announced.

“All we have to do is find them and disconnect them. At the same time, we can find out exactly who received inoculations developed by Consanto. Every single name and address. That may also give us a clue as to where these dishes are located—which areas of London.”

“Forgive me, Prime Minister.” Sir Graham was exasperated. “You say it would be difficult to evacuate London.

But what’s being suggested here—it’s impossible. A vast game of hide-and-seek, and we have no idea how many we’re looking for. If even one of these dishes remains undetected, children will still die.”

”

“We have no alternative,” Kellner insisted. “If we go public with this, the children will die anyway.”

“I can have twenty thousand officers working around the clock,” the police chief said. “The Metropolitan Police. The Home Counties. I can bring in every man and woman in the south of England.”

“We can supply troops.” This was a soldier’s contribution.

“And you think the sight of all these people climbing up and down buildings won’t panic people?” Sir Graham exclaimed.

The prime minister raised his hands for silence. “We’ll start the search at once,” he ordered. “We’ll keep it low-key; we can say it’s a terrorist alert. It doesn’t matter what we say. No one has to know.”

“They won’t be hard to find,” Kellner muttered. “There can’t be that many tall buildings in London. All we’re looking for is a dish stuck on the side.”

“And there is one other possibility,” the prime minister added. He glanced at Blunt. “This woman, Julia Rothman. She knows where the dishes are located. Can you find her?” Blunt showed no emotion at all. He didn’t look at anyone in the room. His eyes were empty slits. “It is possible,” he said. “We can try.”

“Then I suggest you get on to it straight away.”

“Very well, Prime Minister.”

Blunt got to his feet. Sir Graham nodded and Alex stood up too. He was suddenly feeling very tired, as if he had been in this room for days.

“It’s been very good to finally meet you, Alex.” the prime minister said. “Thank you for all you’ve done.” He could have been thanking Alex for serving tea and biscuits. A moment later Alex was forgotten. He and Blunt left the room.

Alex knew what they would want him to do.

He said nothing as he and Blunt were driven back to Liverpool Street. Blunt didn’t speak either, apart from once, just as they were pulling out of Downing Street.

“You did very well in there, Alex,” he said.

“Thank you.”

It was the first time the head of MI6 Special Operations had ever complimented him.

And finally they entered the room on the sixteenth floor, the office Alex knew all too well. Mrs Jones was waiting for them. It was the first time Alex had seen her since he had tried to kill her. She looked exactly the same as he always remembered her. It was as if nothing had happened between them. She was dressed in black, her legs crossed. She was even sucking one of her peppermint sweets.

There was a brief silence as Alex came in.

“Hello, Alex,” she said.

“Mrs Jones.” Alex felt uncomfortable, unsure what to say. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he muttered.

“I think there’s something you should know, Alex. It’s important.“ She glanced at Blunt. ”Did you tell him?”

“No.”

She sighed and turned back to Alex. “I know you think you took a shot at me, but you didn’t. We’ve worked out the angles. The bullet wouldn’t have come close. You were less than two metres away from me and there was no way you could have missed accidentally, so—as far as I can see—something stopped you at the last second.

As much as you hate me—and I suppose you’ve every right to—you weren’t able to shoot me in cold blood.”

“I don’t hate you,” Alex said. It was true. He felt nothing.

“Well, you don’t need to hate yourself either. Whatever Scorpia may have told you, you’re not one of them.”

“Shall we get down to business?”

Blunt took his place behind his desk. Briefly he outlined what had happened at Cobra. “They’ve made all the wrong decisions,” he concluded. “They’re going to look for the dishes—as if they have any hope of finding them. They think an evacuation would be too difficult.”

“Kellner.” Mrs Jones spoke the name with a heavy voice.

“Of course. The prime minister always does what he says. And the trouble is, Kellner’s completely out of his depth. It seems to me we have only one hope.”

“You want me to go back,” Alex said.

It was obvious. Blunt had been told to find Julia Rothman. But he had already admitted that he didn’t know where she was. Nobody did. Only Alex might be able to find her. He had a phone number; they were expecting his call.

“They’ll know I failed,” he said. “At least, they’ll know I was taken prisoner by you.”

“You could escape,” Mrs Jones suggested. “Scorpia won’t know if I’m alive or dead. You could tell them you killed me and that you managed to escape from us later.”

“They might not believe it.”

“You’ll have to make them.” Mrs Jones hesitated. “I know it’s a lot to ask, Alex,” she went on. “After everything that’s happened, I’m sure you never want to see any of us again. But you know the stakes now. If there was any other way…”

“There isn’t,” Alex said. He had made up his mind before he had even left Downing Street. “I can call them. I don’t know if it’ll work; I don’t know if they’ll even answer. But I can try.”

“We’ll just have to hope that they take you to Julia Rothman. It’s our only chance of finding her, and maybe she’ll lead us to the dishes.” Blunt reached out and pressed a button on his phone. “Please could you send Smithers up,” he murmured into the machine.

Smithers. Alex almost smiled. It struck him that Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones had already planned this.

They had known they would be sending him back and they had already told Smithers to come up with whatever gadgets he would need. That was typical of MI6. They were always one step ahead. Not just planning the future but controlling it.

“This is what I want you to do,” Blunt explained. “We’ll arrange an escape for you. If we make it spectacular enough, we can even get it on the evening news. You’ll make the call to Scorpia. You can tell them that you shot Mrs Jones. You’ll sound nervous, on the edge of panic; you’ll ask them to bring you in.”

“You think they’ll come?”

“Let’s hope so. If you can somehow make contact with Julia Rothman, you may be able to find out where the dishes are located. And the moment you know, you get in contact with us. We’ll do the rest.”

“You’ll have to be very careful,” Mrs Jones warned. “Scorpia aren’t stupid. They sent you to us and when you go back, they’ll be very suspicious indeed. You’ll be searched, Alex. Everything you do and say will be examined. You’ll have to lie to them. Do you think you can get away with it?”

“How will I get in touch with you?” Alex asked. “I doubt if they’ll let me use a telephone.” As if in answer to his question, the door opened and Smithers came in. In a strange way Alex was pleased to see him. Smithers was so fat and jolly that it was hard to believe he was part of MI6 at all. He was wearing a tweed suit that was at least fifty years out of date. With his bald head, black moustache, several chins and his open, smiling face, he could have been anybody’s uncle, the sort who liked to do magic tricks at parties.

And yet, for once, even he was serious. “Alex, my dear boy,” he exclaimed. “This is all a bit of a mess, isn’t it!

How are you keeping? Are you in good shape?”

“Hello, Mr Smithers,” Alex said.

“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been tangling with Scorpia. They’re a very, very nasty piece of work. Worse than the Russians ever were. Some of the things they get up to—well, quite frankly it’s criminal.” He was out of breath and sat down heavily in an empty seat. “Sabotage and corruption. Intelligence and assassination. Whatever next?”

“What have you got for us, Smithers?” Blunt asked.

“Well, you always ask the impossible, Mr Blunt, and this time it’s even worse. There are all sorts of gadgets I’d like to give young Alex. I’m always working on new ideas. I’ve just finished work on a pair of Rollerblades.

The blades are actually hidden in the wheels and they’ll cut through anything. I’ve got a very nice Rubik’s Cube hand grenade. But as I understand it, these people aren’t going to let him keep anything when he turns up again.

If there’s anything remotely suspicious, they’re going to examine it, and then they’ll know he’s working with us.”

“He needs to have a homing device,” Mrs Jones said. “We have to be able to track him wherever he goes. And he has to be able to signal to us when it’s time for us to move in.”

“I know,” Smithers said. He reached into his pocket. “And I think I may have come up with the answer. It’s the last thing they’d expect … but at the same time, it’s exactly what you’d expect a teenage boy to have.” He took out a clear plastic bag and inside it Alex saw a small metal and plastic object. He couldn’t help smiling.

The last time he had seen one of these had been at the dentist’s.

It was a brace. For his teeth.

“We may have to make a few adjustments, but it should fit snugly into your mouth.” Smithers tapped the bag.

“The wire going over your teeth is transparent, so it won’t be noticed. It’s actually a looped radio aerial. The brace will begin transmitting the moment you put it in.” He turned the bag over in his pudgy fingers and pointed to the bottom. “There’s a little switch here,” he continued. “You activate it with your tongue. As soon as you do that, you send out a distress signal and we can come rushing in.” Mrs Jones nodded. “Well done, Smithers. That’s first-rate.”

Smithers sighed. “I feel really terrible sending Alex in without any weapons. And I’ve got a marvellous new device for him too! I’ve been working on a Palm Organizer that’s actually a flamethrower. I call it the Napalm Organizer—”

“No weapons,” Blunt said.

“We can’t take the risk,” Mrs Jones agreed.

“You’re right.” Smithers dragged himself slowly to his feet. “Just take care, Alex, old bean. You know how I worry about you. Don’t you dare get yourself killed. I want to see you again.” He left, closing the door behind him.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Mrs Jones said.

“No.” Alex knew she was right. Even if he could persuade Scorpia that he had carried out his assignment, they still wouldn’t trust him. They would search him from head to toe.

“Activate the tracking device as soon as you’ve found the dishes,” Blunt ordered.

“It’s always possible they won’t take you to them,” Mrs Jones added. “In that event, if you can’t slip away, if you feel yourself to be in any danger, activate it anyway. We’ll send special forces in to pull you out.” That surprised Alex. She had never shown very much concern for him in the past. It was as if his breaking into her flat had somehow changed things between them. He glanced at her sitting bolt upright, neat and contained, chewing slowly on the peppermint, and guessed that there was something she wasn’t telling him. Well, that made two of them.

“Are you quite sure about this, Alex?” she asked.

“Yes.” Alex paused. “Can you really make them believe I escaped?” Blunt gave a thin, humourless smile. “Oh yes,” he said. “We’ll make them believe it.” It happened in London and made the six o’clock news.

A car had been driving at speed on the Westway, one of the main roads leading out of the city. The car was high up—this part of the road was suspended on huge concrete pillars. All of a sudden it lost control. Witnesses saw it swerve left and right, careering into the other traffic. At least a dozen other cars were involved in the resulting pile-up. There was a Fiat Uno, crumpled up like paper. A BMW had one side torn off. A van full of flowers, unable to stop in time, crashed into them. Its doors swung open and suddenly—bizarrely—the road was covered with roses and chrysanthemums. A taxi, trying to avoid the chaos, hit the crash barrier and catapulted over the edge, smashing into an upstairs window of someone’s house.

It was a miracle nobody was killed, although a dozen people were rushed to nearby hospitals. The aftermath of the accident had been recorded by traffic policemen in a helicopter, and there it was on television. The road was closed. Smoke was still rising from a burnt-out car. There was shattered metal and glass everywhere.

A number of witnesses were interviewed and they described what they had seen. There had been a boy in the front car, they said, the one that had started it all. They had seen him get out the moment it was all over. He had run back down the road and disappeared through the traffic. There had been a man—in a dark suit and sunglasses—who had tried to follow him. But the man had obviously been hurt. He had been limping. The boy had escaped.

Two hours later the road was still closed. The police said they were looking for the boy urgently, to interview him. But apart from the fact that he was about fourteen years old and dressed in black, there was no description.

They didn’t have a name. The traffic in west London had come to a standstill. It would take days to clear up the damage.

Sitting in a hotel room in Mayfair, Julia Rothman saw the report and her eyes narrowed. She knew who the boy was, of course. It couldn’t be anyone else. She wondered what had happened. More to the point, she wondered when Alex Rider would get in touch.

In fact, it wasn’t until seven o’clock that evening that Alex made the call. He was in a phone box near Marble Arch. He was already wearing the brace, giving his mouth time to get used to it. But still he found it hard to stop slurring his words.

A man answered. “Yes?”

“This is Alex Rider.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in a call box on the Edgware Road.”

This was true. Alex was dressed once again in the black ninja outfit which Scorpia had supplied him with. The phone box was outside a Lebanese restaurant. He had no doubt that Scorpia would be using sophisticated equipment to trace the call. He wondered how long it would take them to reach him.

He thought back to the car crash. He had to admit that MI6 had stage-managed it brilliantly. No fewer than twenty cars had been involved and they had only had a couple of hours, working with a team of stuntmen, to get it right. Not a single member of the public had been injured. But looking at the television footage and hearing the reports, Scorpia would have to admit that it looked real. That was what Blunt had said from the start. The bigger the pile-up, the less reason there would be for doubt. The front page of the Evening Standard’s final edition carried a photograph of the taxi embedded in the window of the house.

None of this mattered to the voice at the other end of the line.

“Is the woman dead?” it asked. The woman. Scorpia didn’t call her Mrs Jones any more. But then, corpses don’t need names.

“Yes,” Alex answered.

When they came to him, they would find the Kahr P9 back in his pocket with the one bullet fired. If they examined his hands (Blunt was sure they would) there would be traces of gunpowder on his fingers. And there was a bloodstain on the sleeve of his shirt. The same blood type as Mrs Jones. She had supplied the sample.

“What happened?”

“They caught me on the way out. They took me to Liverpool Street and asked me questions. This afternoon they were taking me somewhere else but I managed to get away.” Alex allowed a little panic to enter his voice.

He was a teenager; he had just made his first kill; and he was on the run. “Look. You said you’d bring me in once I’d done it. I’m in a phone box. Everyone’s looking for me. I want to see Nile…” A brief pause.

“All right. Make your way to Bank tube station. There’s an intersection. Seven roads. Be outside the main entrance at nine o’clock exactly and we’ll come and collect you.”

“Who will—” Alex began. But the phone had gone dead.

He hung up and stepped out of the telephone box. Two police cars sped past, their lights flashing. But they weren’t interested in him. Alex took his bearings and started off, heading east. Bank tube station was on the other side of London and it would take him at least an hour to walk there. He had no money on him and couldn’t risk being arrested for fare-dodging on a bus. And when he got there—seven roads! Scorpia were being careful. They could come for him from any direction. If this was a set-up and MI6 were following him, they would have to divide themselves seven ways.

He set off along the crowded pavements, keeping to the shadows, trying not to think what he was letting himself in for. The night was already drawing in. He could see a hard, white moon, dead in the sky. Everything would end, one way or another, the next day. Just over twenty hours remained until Scorpia’s deadline.

It was his deadline too.

That was the one thing he hadn’t told Mrs Jones.

He remembered what had happened on Malagosto. On his last day there he had been sent to see a psychiatrist—

an inquisitive, middle-aged man—who had put him through certain tests and then produced his medical report.

What was it that Dr Steiner had said? He was a little run-down. He needed more vitamins.

And he had given Alex an injection.

Alex had absolutely no doubt that he had been injected with the same nanoshells that were about to kill thousands of other children in London. He could almost feel them in his bloodstream, millions of golden bullets swirling around in his heart, waiting to release their deadly contents. There was a sour taste in his mouth.

Scorpia had tricked him. They had been laughing at him from the very start. Even as Mrs Rothman sipped her champagne in Positano, she must have been thinking of how to get rid of him.

He hadn’t told Mrs Jones because he didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want anyone to know what a fool he had been. And, at the same time, he was utterly determined. Once the switch was thrown, he would die. But there would be time before that.

Scorpia had told him that it was good to get revenge.

That was exactly what Alex Rider intended to do.

THE CHURCH OF FORGOTTEN SAINTS

« ^ »

The search had already begun.

Hundreds of men and women were working their way across London, with hundreds more acting as back-up: on the telephone, on computers, searching and cross-referencing, trawling through the records. Government scientists had confirmed Dr Stephenson’s prediction that the terahertz dishes would have to be at least one hundred metres above the ground to be effective—and that did indeed make it easier. A search of the city’s basements, cellars and twisting alleyways would have been impossible, even for the country’s entire police force and army. But they were looking for something that had to be high up and in plain view. The clock was ticking but it could be done.

Every satellite dish in London was noted, photographed, authenticated and then eliminated from the search.

Whenever possible, the original planning application was found and checked against the actual dish itself.

Telecommunications experts had been called in and wherever there was any doubt they were taken up to the relevant floor to see for themselves.

If people were puzzled by the sudden buzz of activity in apartment blocks and offices, nobody said anything.

The few journalists who started to ask questions were quietly pulled aside and threatened with such ferocity that they soon decided there were other, less dangerous stories to pursue. Word went round that there was a crackdown on television licences. And every hour, across the city, more technicians poked and probed, examining the dishes, making sure they had a right to be there.

And then, just after ten o’clock on Thursday morning, six hours before Scorpia’s deadline, they found them.

There was a block of flats on the edge of Notting Hill Gate with amazing views over the whole of west London.

It was one of the tallest blocks in the city—famous for both its height and its ugliness. It had been designed in the sixties by an architect who must have been relieved he would never have to live in it.

The roof contained a number of brick structures: the cables for the lifts, air-conditioning units, emergency generators. It was on the side of one of these that the inspectors found three brand-new satellite dishes facing north, south and east.

Nobody knew what they were for. Nobody had any record of their being placed there. Within minutes there were a dozen technicians on the roof and more circling in helicopters. The cables were found to lead to a radio transmitting device, programmed to begin emitting high frequency terahertz beams at exactly four o’clock that afternoon.

Mark Kellner took the phone call at 10 Downing Street.

“We’ve done it!” he exclaimed. “A block of flats in west London. Three dishes. They’re disconnecting them now.”

Cobra was still in session. Around the table there was a murmur of disbelief that swelled in volume and became a roar of triumph.

“We’re going to keep looking,” Kellner said. “There’s always a faint chance that Scorpia put other dishes in place as back-up. But if there are any others, we’ll find them too. I think we can say that the immediate crisis is over.”

At Liverpool Street Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones were also told the news.

“What do you think?” Mrs Jones asked.

Blunt shook his head. “Scorpia are more clever than that. If these dishes have been found, it’s only because they were meant to be found.”

“So Kellner is wrong again.”

“The man’s a fool.” Blunt glanced at his watch.

“We don’t have much time.”

Mrs Jones looked at him. “All we have is Alex Rider.”

Alex was on the other side of London, a long way from the satellite dishes.

He had been picked up outside Bank Station at the agreed time the night before—but not by car. A scruffy young woman he had never seen before walked past him, whispering two words as she went by, and thrusting a tube ticket into his hand.

“Follow me.”

She led him into the station and onto a train. She didn’t speak to him again, standing some distance away in the carriage, her eyes vacant, as if she was nothing to do with him. They changed trains twice, waiting until the last moment as the doors slid shut and then suddenly stepping out onto the platform. If anyone were following them, she would see. Finally they emerged at King’s Cross Station. She left Alex standing in the street, signalling for him to wait. A few minutes later a taxi pulled up.

“Alex Rider?”

“Yes.”

“Get in.”

It was all done very smoothly. As they moved off, Alex knew that it would have been impossible for any MI6

agents to have followed them. Which was, of course, exactly what Scorpia had planned.

He was taken to a house—a different house to the one he had visited when he first arrived back in London. This one was on the edge of Regent’s Park. A man and woman were waiting for him, and he recognized them as the fake Italian parents who had accompanied him through Heathrow. They led him upstairs and showed him into a shabby bedroom with a bathroom attached. There was a late supper waiting for him on a tray. They left him there, locking the door behind them. There was no telephone. Alex checked the window. That was locked too.

And now it was half past one the next day and Alex was sitting on the bed, looking out of the window at the trees and Victorian railings of the park. He was feeling a little sick. He had begun to think that Scorpia simply planned to leave him here until four o’clock, that they wanted him to die with the other children in London.

And that reminded him of the nanoshells which he knew were inside him, resting inside his heart. He remembered the prick of the needle, the smiling face of Dr Steiner as he injected him with death. The thought of it made his skin crawl. Was he really doomed to spend the last hours of his life here, in this room, sitting on an unmade bed, alone?

The door opened.

Nile walked in, followed by Julia Rothman.

She was wearing an expensive coat, grey with a white fur collar, buttoned up to her neck—another designer label. Her black hair was immaculate, her make-up as much a mask as the ones that had been worn at her party at the Widow’s Palace. Her smile was a brilliant red. Her eyes seemed more dazzling than ever, highlighted by perfectly applied black eyeliner.

“Alex!” she exclaimed. She sounded genuinely delighted to see him, but Alex knew now that everything about her was fake: nothing was to be trusted.

“I wondered if you were going to come,” Alex commented.

“Of course I was going to come, my dear. It’s just that this is rather a busy day. How are you, Alex? I am so pleased to see you.”

“Did you really kill her?” Nile asked. He was casually dressed in a loose jacket and jeans, trainers and a white sweatshirt.

Mrs Rothman scowled. “Nile, do you have to be so direct?” She shrugged. “He’s talking about Mrs Jones, of course. And I suppose we do need to know what happened. The mission was a success?”

“Yes.” Alex nodded. This was the most dangerous part. He knew he couldn’t talk too much; he was afraid of giving himself away. And he was horribly conscious of the brace. It fitted well, but it had to be distorting his speech, at least a bit. The wire across his teeth was transparent but, even so, surely Mrs Rothman would notice it.

“So what happened?” Nile asked.

“I managed to get inside her flat. It all went exactly like you said. I used the gun…”

“And then?”

“I took the lift back down and I was just on my way out when the two guys behind the desk grabbed me.” Alex had spent half the night rehearsing this. “I don’t know how they found out it was me. But before I could do anything they had me on the floor with my hands cuffed behind my back.”

“Go on.” Mrs Rothman was gazing at him. Her eyes could have been trying to suck him in.

“They took me somewhere. A cell.” This part was easier—Alex was actually telling a version of the truth. “It was underneath Liverpool Street. They left me there overnight and then Blunt saw me the next day.”

“What did he say?”

“Not a lot. He knew I was working for you. They’d got satellite photographs of me arriving at Malagosto.” Nile glanced at Mrs Rothman. “That makes sense,” he said. “I’ve always had a feeling we’ve been under surveillance.”

“He didn’t want to know very much,” Alex went on. “He didn’t really want to talk to me. He said I was going to be questioned somewhere out of London. I was left hanging around there for a bit, then a car came to collect me.”

“You were handcuffed?” Mrs Rothman asked.

“Not this time. That was their mistake. It was just an ordinary car. There was the driver in the front, and an MI6

man in the back with me. I didn’t know where they were taking me and I didn’t want to go. I didn’t really care what happened. I didn’t even care if I was killed. I waited until they got a bit of speed up and then I threw myself at the driver. I managed to put my hands over his eyes. There was nothing much he could do. He lost control and the car crashed.”

“Quite a few cars crashed,” Mrs Rothman remarked.

“Yeah. But I was lucky. Everything sort of went upside down, but the next thing I knew, we’d stopped and I was able to get out and run away. Eventually I reached a phone box and called the number you gave me—and here I am.”

Nile had been watching him closely through all this. “How did it feel, Alex?” he asked. “Killing Mrs Jones.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

Nile nodded. “It was the same for me, the first time. But you will learn to enjoy it. That’ll come with time.”

“You’ve done very well, Alex.” Mrs Rothman spoke the words, but she still sounded doubtful. “I have to say, I’m quite astonished by your daring escape. I saw it on the news and I could hardly believe it. But you’ve certainly passed the test. You really are one of us.”

“Does that mean you’ll take me back to Venice?”

“Not quite yet.” Mrs Rothman thought for a moment and Alex could see she was coming to a decision. “We’re just at the critical point in a certain operation,” she revealed. “It might interest you to see the climax; it’s going to be quite spectacular. What do you think?”

Alex shrugged. He mustn’t look too keen. “I don’t mind,” he said.

“You met Dr Liebermann; you were there at Consanto when dear Nile dealt with him. It seems only right that you should see the fruits of his handiwork.” She smiled again. “I’d like to have you with me, at the end.” So you can watch me die, Alex thought. “I’d like to be there,” he replied.

Then her eyes narrowed and the smile seemed to freeze. “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to search you,” she said. “I do trust you, of course. But as you’ll learn when you’ve been with Scorpia for a while, we don’t leave anything to chance. You were taken prisoner by MI6. It’s always possible that you were somehow contaminated without knowing it. So before we leave here, I want you to go into the bathroom with Nile. He’ll give you a thorough examination. And we’ve got you a complete change of clothes. Everything has to come off, Alex. It’s all a bit embarrassing, I know, but I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“I’ve nothing to hide,” Alex said, but he couldn’t help running his tongue over the brace. He was certain she’d see it.

“Of course you haven’t. I’m just being overcautious.”

“Let’s do it.” Nile jerked a thumb in the direction of the bathroom. He seemed amused by the whole idea.

Twenty minutes later Alex and Nile came downstairs. Alex was now dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a round-necked jersey. Nile had brought the clothes with him, along with fresh socks, trainers and pants. Mrs Jones had been right. If he’d had so much as a penny on him, Nile would have found it. Alex had been thoroughly searched.

But Nile hadn’t noticed the brace. Alex’s mouth was the one place he hadn’t looked.

“Well?” Mrs Rothman asked. She was in a hurry to leave.

“He’s clean,” Nile answered.

“Good. Then we can go.”

There was a grandfather clock in the hall, standing in the corner on the black and white tiled floor. As Alex moved towards the front door, it struck the hour. Two o’clock.

“Is that the time already?” Mrs Rothman said. She reached out and stroked Alex’s cheek. “You have just two hours left, Alex.”

“Two hours until what?” he asked.

“In two hours’ time you’ll know everything.”

She opened the door.

There was a car waiting for them outside. It took them across London, heading south. They drove round the Aldwych and over Waterloo Bridge, and for a moment Alex gazed out over one of the most startling views of the capital: the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, with the Millennium Wheel on the opposite bank. What would it look like two hours from now? Alex tried to imagine the ambulances and police cars screaming across London, the crowds staring in disbelief, the undersized bodies strewn over the pavements. It would be like another world war—but without a single shot being fired.

And then they were on the south bank of the river, making their way through Waterloo, heading east. The buildings they passed became older and dustier. It was as if they had travelled not just a few miles but a few hundred years. Alex sat in the back, next to Nile. Mrs Rothman was in the front with a blank-faced driver.

Nobody spoke. It was warm inside the car—the sun was shining—but Alex could feel a tension that made the air cold. He was certain they were heading for some high point where Invisible Sword must be concealed, but he had no idea what to expect. An office block? Perhaps a building under construction? He stared out of the window, his head pressed against the glass, trying to stay calm.

They stopped.

The car had pulled up on a strange, empty stretch of road that ran for about fifteen metres before coming to a dead end. Mrs Rothman and Nile climbed out of the car and Alex followed, examining his surroundings with a sinking heart. It looked as if they hadn’t taken him to the dishes after all. There were no tall buildings in sight, not for at least a mile around. The street—almost as wide as it was long—ran between two rows of dilapidated shops, the lower floors boarded up, the windows broken and discoloured. The street itself was covered with rubbish: scraps of newspaper, dented cans and old crisp packets.

But it was the building at the end that commanded his attention. The street led to a church that would have been more suited to Rome or Venice than London. It had obviously been abandoned long ago and had deteriorated badly, yet still it struggled to be magnificent. Two huge, cracked pillars supported a triangular roof over the main entrance. Marble steps led up to huge doors made of solid bronze, but green now rather than gold. The great bulk of the church rose up behind, surmounted by a dome which glinted in the afternoon sun. Statues lined the steps and stood dotted across the roof. But they had been brutalized by time and the elements. Some were missing arms; many had no faces. Once they had been saints and angels. Two hundred years standing in London had turned them into cripples.

“Why are we here?” Alex asked.

Mrs Rothman was standing next to him, looking up at the church. “I thought you’d like to witness the conclusion of Invisible Sword.”

“I don’t know anything about Invisible Sword.” Without giving himself away, Alex was searching for any sign of the satellite dishes. But there didn’t seem to be anything on the dome and, anyway, as impressive as it was, it wasn’t tall enough. The dishes had to be higher up. “What is this place?” Mrs Rothman looked at him curiously. “You know, Alex, I’d swear there was something different about you.” Alex quietly closed his mouth, hiding the brace. He looked at her quizzically.

“Nile? Did you search him from top to bottom?”

“Yes. Just like you told me to.”

“I would’ve thought you’d have trusted me by now,” Alex protested, but this time he looked away so she wouldn’t see his teeth. “I did exactly what you told me to. And I nearly got killed.”

“I don’t trust anyone, Alex. Not even Nile.” She paused. “Since you ask, this building is the Church of Forgotten Saints. It’s not actually a church; it’s an oratory. It was built in the nineteenth century by a community of Catholic priests living in the area. They were rather odd. They worshipped a collection of saints who have all fallen into obscurity. You’d be amazed how many saints there are who we’ve completely forgotten about. St Fiacre, for example, is the patron saint of gardeners and taxi drivers. That must keep him busy! St Ambrose looks after bee-keepers, and where would tailors be without St Homobonus? Did you know that undertakers and perfume makers both have their own saints? They were worshipped here too. I suppose it’s not surprising the church fell into disuse. It was bombed in the war and it’s been empty ever since. Scorpia took it over a few years ago. As you’ll see, we’ve made one or two interesting adjustments. Do you want to come inside?”

Alex shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

He had no choice. For some reason, Julia Rothman had chosen to bring him here, and presumably he would still be here when the terahertz beams were fired across London. He glanced at the dome again, wondering if the surface would be enough to protect him. He doubted it.

The three of them walked forward. The car had left. Alex looked at the shops on either side. Not a single one was occupied. He wondered if he was being watched. It occurred to him that anyone wanting to enter the church would have to come this way, and it would be easy enough to keep them under surveillance with hidden cameras. They reached the main entrance, which sensed their arrival and opened electronically. That was interesting. Mrs Rothman had spoken of adjustments and it was already clear that the oratory wasn’t quite as derelict as it first appeared.

They entered a grand hall, rectangular in shape, that served as an antechamber to the main body of the church.

Everything was grey: the huge flagstones, the ceiling, the stone pillars that supported it. Alex looked around him as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light. There were circular windows on both sides but the glass was so thick it seemed to block out most of the daylight rather than allow it in. Everything was faded and dusty. Two statues—more forgotten saints?—stood either side of a cracked and broken font. There was a faint smell of damp in the air. It was easy to believe that nobody had been here for fifty-odd years. Alex coughed and listened to the sound travel up. The chamber was utterly silent, and there seemed to be no obvious way forward. The street was behind them; a solid wall blocked the way ahead. But then Julia Rothman walked across the floor.

Her stiletto heels rapped against the stone, creating echoes that flitted into the shadows.

Her movement had been some sort of signal. There was a loud buzz and, overhead, a series of arc lamps—

concealed in the walls and ceiling—flashed on. Beams of brilliant white light crashed down from every direction. At the same time, five panels slid silently open, one after the other. They were part of the wall, built into it, disguised to look like brick. Now Alex saw that they were in fact solid steel. More light spilled out and with it came the sound of men moving, of machinery, of frantic activity.

“Welcome to Invisible Sword,” Mrs Rothman announced, and in that moment Alex knew why she had brought him here. She was proud of what she had done. She couldn’t hide the pleasure in her voice. She wanted him to see.

Alex stepped through the opening and into a scene he would never forget.

It was a classical church, just like the monastery on Malagosto. Scorpia seemed to enjoy cloaking itself in religion. The floor was made up of black and white tiles. There were stained-glass windows, a richly carved wooden pulpit, even a few old pews. The remains of an organ clung to one wall but, looking at the pipes, some broken, others missing, Alex knew that it would never play again. The dome curved above his head, the underside painted with more saints, men and women holding the various objects with which they were associated: furniture, shoes, library books and loaves of bread. All of them had been forgotten. All of them were frozen together in a single great tableau overhead.

The church had been filled with electronic equipment: computers, TV monitors, industrial lights and a series of switches and levers that couldn’t have been more out of place. Two steel gantries had been built, one on either side, with armed guards positioned at intervals. There must have been twenty or thirty people involved in the operation, at least half of them carrying machine guns. As Alex took all this in, a voice rang out, amplified through speakers bolted into the walls.

“Six minutes until launch. Six minutes and counting…”

Alex knew that he had arrived at the centre of the web, and even as he stared, his tongue travelled to the roof of his mouth and pressed the switch which Smithers had built into his brace. Mark Kellner, the prime minister’s director of communications, had got it wrong again. Scorpia hadn’t attached the terahertz dishes to any tall building.

They had attached them to a hot-air balloon.

Six men dressed in dark overalls were inflating it. There was plenty of floor space, and the dome was as high as a six-storey building. The balloon was painted blue and white. Once released, it would blend in with the sky.

How were they going to release it? Alex wondered. The church was completely enclosed by the dome. Even so, that had to be their plan. There was a frame under the balloon with a single burner pointing upwards, and, beneath that, a platform about twenty metres square. The balloon was strangely old-fashioned, like something out of a Victorian adventure story. The platform couldn’t have been more high-tech, though, built out of some sort of lightweight plastic with a low railing to protect the equipment it carried.

Alex recognized the equipment instantly. There were four dishes, one in each corner, facing the four points of the compass. They were dull silver in colour, about three metres in diameter, with thin metal rods forming a triangle that protruded from the centre. Wires connected the dishes to a series of complicated-looking boxes which took up most of the space in the centre of the platform. Black pipes ran up to the burner, carrying propane gas from the tanks which were stacked next to the boxes. The balloon was almost inflated. It had been lying spread out on the ground but even as Alex watched, the air in the envelope was heated by three men using a second burner device and it began to lift itself limply up.

More men ran forward to hold the platform steady. There were two ropes, one at each end. Alex saw that the whole thing had been tethered to a pair of iron rings set in the floor. Now he understood what Scorpia intended to do. Julia Rothman must have anticipated that government scientists would work out how the footballers at Heathrow Airport had died. She had known that they would be searching London for the satellite dishes. So she had kept them hidden until the last moment. The hot-air balloon would lift them up into the air. They would only need to stay there for a few minutes. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it would be too late. The golden nanoshells would have dissolved and thousands of children would be dead.

He noticed that Nile had taken off his jacket and was strapping something to his back. It was a leather harness with two lethal-looking weapons: not quite swords, not quite daggers, but something in between. Alex remembered how Dr Liebermann had died and knew that Nile was an expert at iaido, the ninja art of sword fighting. He could slice with the swords or he could throw them. Either way, he was lightning fast—Alex knew he could deliver death in an instant.

There was nothing he could do but stand and watch. He had no gadgets, no hidden weapons. Mrs Rothman might have bought the story of his capture and escape, but her eyes were still on him. In truth they had never wavered. She was still suspicious. If he so much as sneezed without her permission, she would give the order and he would be cut down.

How long had it been since he had activated the homing device? Sixty seconds? Maybe more. Alex felt the wire running across his teeth and tried to imagine the signal being transmitted to MI6. How long would it take them to arrive?

Mrs Rothman stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers caressed the side of his neck. She ran her tongue, small and moist, over her lips.

“Let me explain to you what we’re doing here, Alex,” she began. “As a member of Scorpia, I’m sure you’d like to know.”

“Are you going for a balloon ride?” Alex asked.

“No. I’m not going anywhere.” She smiled. “Two days ago we made certain demands. These demands were directed against the American government but we made it clear that if they did not obey, it would be the British who would suffer the consequences. The deadline runs out”—she looked at her watch—“in less than fifteen minutes. The Americans have not done as we asked. And now it is time for the punishment to begin.”

“What are you going to do?” Alex asked. He couldn’t keep the horror out of his voice because, of course, he already knew.

“In a few minutes the balloon will be completely inflated and we will raise it above this church. The ropes will keep it tethered at exactly one hundred metres, and when it reaches that point, the machinery which you can see on the platform will activate immediately. High frequency terahertz beams will then be transmitted over London for exactly two minutes and, at that moment, I’m afraid a very large number of people will die.”

“Why?” Alex could barely speak. “What did you ask the Americans? What did you want them to do?”

“As a matter of fact, we didn’t want them to do anything. The demands we made were completely ridiculous.

We asked them to disarm; we told them to pay a billion dollars. We knew they’d never agree.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because what our client really wants is revenge. Revenge for the constant interference and bullying of the British and the Americans in matters that don’t concern them. What he wants is to ensure that the special friendship between the two countries is destroyed for ever. And this is how it’s going to happen.

“I’m afraid that a great many people are about to die in London. The deaths will be sudden and totally unexpected. It’ll be as if they’ve been struck down by an invisible sword. The whole country will be in shock.

And then the news will come out: they died because the Americans wouldn’t agree to our demands. They died because the Americans refused to help the ally who always stands by them. Can you imagine what the newspapers will say? Can you imagine what people will think? By tomorrow morning the British will hate the Americans.

“And then, Alex, in a few months, Invisible Sword will strike again—but next time it will be in New York. And next time our demands will be more reasonable. We’ll ask for less and the Americans will give us what we want, because they will have seen what happened in London and they won’t want it to happen again. They’ll have no choice. And that will be the end of the British-American alliance. Don’t you see? The Americans couldn’t care less about the British. They’ve only ever been concerned about themselves. That’s what everyone will say, and you have no idea how much hatred will be created. One country humiliated; the other crushed.

And Scorpia will have earned a hundred million pounds along the way.” She paused, as if waiting for him to congratulate her. Alex was meant to be a member of her organization, the newest recruit. His father would have been glad to stand at her side. But Alex couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t find it in himself. He couldn’t even pretend.

“You can’t do it!” he whispered. “You can’t kill children just to get rich.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he knew he had made a mistake. Julia Rothman’s reaction was as fast as a snake … as fast as a scorpion. One moment, that soft, casual smile had been on her lips; the next, she was rigid, alert, her whole consciousness focused on Alex.

Nile looked over, sensing something was wrong. Alex waited for the axe to fall. And then it came.

“Children?” Mrs Rothman murmured. “I never said anything about children.”

“But there will be children.” Alex tried frantically to backtrack. “Adults and children.”

“No, Alex.” Mrs Rothman seemed almost amused. “You know that children are the targets. I never told you that; so somebody else must have.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

She was examining him minutely. Closing in on him. And suddenly she saw it. “I thought there was something different about you,” she snapped. “What’s that you’ve got on your teeth?” It was too late to hide it. Alex opened his mouth. “I wear a brace.”

“You weren’t wearing a brace in Positano.”

“I didn’t have it in.”

“Take it out.”

“It doesn’t come out.”

“It will—with a hammer.” Alex had no choice. He reached into his mouth and took out the piece of plastic. Nile moved closer, his eyes full of curiosity. “Let me see it, Alex.” Like a naughty boy caught eating gum, Alex held out his hand. The brace was resting in his palm. And it was obvious it was no ordinary brace. They could see some of the circuitry leading to the switch he had activated.

Had he pressed it in time? “Drop it!” Mrs Rothman commanded. Alex let the brace fall to the floor and she stepped forward. Her foot came down on it and Alex heard the sound of breaking plastic as she ground it into the tiles. When she removed her foot the brace was cracked in half, the wire bent. If it had been transmitting before, it certainly wasn’t now.

Mrs Rothman turned to Nile. “You’re a fool, Nile. I thought I told you to search him from top to bottom.”

“His mouth…” Nile didn’t know what to say. “It was the one place I didn’t look.” But she had already turned back to Alex. “You didn’t do it, did you, Alex?“ Her voice was full of scorn. ”You didn’t kill her. Mrs Jones is still alive.”

Alex said nothing. Mrs Rothman stared at him for what seemed like an eternity, and then she struck. She was faster and stronger than he would have guessed. Her hand slammed into the side of his face. The sound of it echoed all around. Alex staggered back, dazed. His whole head was ringing and he could feel his cheek glowing red. Mrs Rothman signalled and two guards with machine guns stepped forward to stand next to him, one on either side.

“We may be expecting company,” she announced in a loud, clear voice. “I want units three, four and five to take up defensive positions.”

“Units three, four and five to the perimeter.” An amplified voice relayed the command and twenty of the men ran forward, their feet stamping on the metal gantries, heading for the front of the church.

Mrs Rothman gazed at Alex with eyes that had lost their disguise. They were utterly cruel. “Mrs Jones may be alive,” she spat, “but you won’t be. You have very little time left to live, Alex. Why do you think I brought you here? It’s because I want to see it for myself. I had a special reason to want to kill you, and believe it or not, my dear, you’re already dead.”

She looked past him. The balloon was fully inflated, floating in the space between the floor and the dome. The platform with its deadly cargo was underneath it, hovering a metre above the ground. The ropes were ready.

The dishes were set to automatic.

“Start the launch,” Mrs Rothman commanded. “It’s time London saw the power of Invisible Sword.” HIGH RESOLUTION

« ^ »

Launch … status red. Launch … status red.“ The disembodied voice rang out as one of the Scorpia technicians, sitting in front of a bank of machinery, reached out and pressed a button.

There was a single metallic click and then the hum of machinery as a wheel turned somewhere overhead. Alex looked up. At first glance it seemed to him that the saints and angels were flying apart, as if they had come to life and were drifting down to the pews to pray. Then, with a gasp, he saw what was actually happening. The entire roof was moving. The dome of the oratory had been reconstructed with hidden hydraulic arms that were slowly pulling it open. A crack appeared and widened. He could see the sky. An inch at a time, the great dome was folding back, splitting into two halves. Mrs Rothman was staring upwards, her face filled with delight.

Only now did Alex see how much planning had gone into this operation. The entire church had been adapted—

it must have cost millions—for this single moment.

And nobody had guessed. The police and the army had been searching all over London, examining every structure at least a hundred metres high. But the dishes had been hidden—at ground level. Only now would the hot-air balloon carry them above the city. Certainly someone would notice it. But by the time they made their way to this desolate area, it would be too late. The dishes would have done their work. Thousands of children would have died.

And Alex would be one of them. Mrs Rothman hadn’t killed him, because she had no need to. She had said it herself: he was already dead.

“Raise the balloon.” Mrs Rothman gave the order in a soft voice. But her words were quite clear in the vast space of the church.

The burner under the envelope was alight, sending a red and blue flame shooting up. Two men darted forward and pulled the release mechanism, and at once the platform began to rise. The entire roof had disappeared. It was as if the oratory had been peeled open like an exotic fruit. There was more than enough room for the balloon to begin its journey, and Alex watched it float smoothly up, travelling in a straight line, as if this had been rehearsed. There was no wind. Even the weather seemed to be on Scorpia’s side.

Alex looked around him. His face was still smarting where Mrs Rothman had slapped him but he ignored the pain. He was horribly aware of the seconds ticking away, but there was nothing he could do. Nile was watching him with as much hatred as he had ever seen in a man’s face. The two samurai swords protruded just above his shoulders, and Alex knew he was itching to use them. He had betrayed Scorpia and, worse, he had betrayed Nile. He had humiliated the man in front of Julia Rothman, and for that Nile would make him pay by cutting him to pieces. He needed only the tiniest excuse. The two armed guards still flanked Alex. Others watched him from the gantries and their positions at the entrance. He was helpless.