Snakehead

A N T H O N Y H O R O W I T Z

P H I L O M E L B O O K S

PHILOMEL BOOKS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

Published by The Penguin Group.

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Copyright © 2007 by Anthony Horowitz. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, Philomel Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

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Design by Katrina Damkoehler.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Horowitz, Anthony, 1955-Snakehead / Anthony Horowitz. - 1st American ed. p. cm.

Summary: While working with the Australian Secret Service on a dangerous mission, teenaged spy Alex Rider uncovers information about his parents.

[1. Spies-Fiction. 2. Orphans-Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers-Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.H7875Sn 2007 [Fic]-dc22 2007020505

ISBN: 1-4295-7113-6

To B&CD.

C O N T E N T S

1

D O W N T O E A R T H

1

2

“ D E A T H I S N O T T H E E N D ”

7

3

V I S A P R O B L E M S

2 4

4

N O P I C N I C

3 7

5

O N T H E R O C K S

5 6

6

C I T Y O F A N G E L S ?

7 3

7

FA T H E R A N D S O N

8 6

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F I R S T C O N TA C T

1 0 0

9

O N C E B I T T E N . . .

1 2 1

1 0

WA T H O

1 3 5

1 1

A R M E D A N D D A N G E R O U S

1 5 1

1 2

T H E S I L E N T S T R E E T S

1 6 7

1 3

U N W I N T O Y S

1 9 6

1 4

T H E L I B E R I A N S TA R

2 2 0

1 5

H I D E - A N D - S E E K

2 3 8

1 6

M A D E I N B R I TA I N

2 6 3

1 7

S PA R E PA R T S

2 8 5

1 8

D E A D O F N I G H T

3 0 0

1 9

W H I T E WA T E R

3 1 3

2 0

B A T T E R I E S N O T I N C L U D E D

3 2 7

2 1

A T TA C K F O R C E

3 3 8

2 2

D R A G O N N I N E

3 4 9

2 3

D I N N E R F O R T H R E E

3 7 5

ALSO BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ

THE ALEX RIDER ADVENTURES:

Stormbreaker

Point Blank

Skeleton Key

Eagle Strike

Scorpia

Ark Angel

THE DIAMOND BROTHERS MYSTERIES:

The Falcon’s Malteser

Public Enemy Number Two

Three of Diamonds

South by Southeast

Horowitz Horror

More Horowitz Horror

The Devil and His Boy

1

D O W N T O E A R T H

S P L A S H D O W N .

Alex Rider would never forget the moment of impact, the first shock as the parachute opened and the second—

more jolting still—as the module that had carried him back from outer space crashed into the sea. Was it his imagination, or was there steam rising up all around him?

Maybe it was sea spray. It didn’t matter. He was back.

That was all he cared about. He had made it. He was still alive.

He was still lying on his back, crammed into the tiny space with his knees tucked into his chest. Half closing his eyes, Alex experienced a moment of extraordinary still-ness. He was completely still. His fists were clenched. He wasn’t breathing. Was it really true? Already he found it impossible to believe that the events that had led to his journey into outer space had really taken place. He tried to imagine himself hurtling around the earth at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour. It couldn’t have happened. It had surely all been part of some incredible dream.

Slowly he forced himself to unwind. He lifted an arm.

It rose normally. He could feel the muscle connecting.

Just minutes before he had been in zero gravity. But as he 2

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rested, trying to collect his thoughts, he realized that once again his body belonged to him.

Alex wasn’t sure how long he was left on his own, floating on the water somewhere . . . it could have been anywhere in the world. But when things happened, they did so very quickly. First there was the hammering of helicopter blades. Then the whoop of some sort of siren. He could see very little out the window—just the rise and fall of the ocean—but suddenly a man was there, a scuba diver, a palm slamming against the glass. A few seconds later, the capsule was opened from outside. Fresh air came rushing in, and to Alex it smelled delicious. At the same time, a man loomed over him, his body wrapped in neoprene, his eyes behind a mask.

“Are you okay?”

Alex could hardly make out the words, there was so much noise outside. Did the diver have an American accent? “I’m fine,” he managed to shout back. But it wasn’t true. He was beginning to feel sick. There was a shooting pain behind his eyes.

“Don’t worry! We’ll soon have you out of there . . .” It took them a while. Alex had only been in space a short time, but he’d never had any physical training for it, and now his muscles were turning against him, reluctant to start pulling their own weight. He had to be manhan-dled out of the capsule, into the blinding sun of a Pacific afternoon. Everything was chaotic. There was a helicop-D o w n t o E a r t h

3

ter overhead, the blades beating at the ocean, forming patterns that rippled and vibrated. Alex turned his head and saw—impossibly—an aircraft carrier, as big as a mountain, looming out of the water less than a quarter of a mile away. It was flying the Stars and Stripes. So he had been right about the diver. He must have landed somewhere off the coast of America.

There were two more divers in the water, bobbing up and down next to the capsule, and Alex could see a third man leaning out of the helicopter directly above him. He knew what was going to happen, and he didn’t resist.

First a loop of cable was passed around his chest and connected. He felt it tighten under his arms. And then he was rising into the air, still in his space suit, dangling like a silver puppet as he was winched up.

And already they knew. He had glimpsed it in the eyes of the diver who had spoken to him. The disbelief. These men—the helicopter, the aircraft carrier—had been rushed out to rendezvous with a module that had just reentered the earth’s atmosphere. And inside, they had found a boy. A fourteen-year-old had just plummeted a hundred miles from outer space. These men would be sworn to secrecy, of course. MI6 would see to that. They would never talk about what had happened. Nor would they forget it.

There was a medical officer waiting for him on board the USS Kitty Hawk— which was the name of the ship 4

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that had been diverted to pick him up. His name was Josh Cook, and he was forty years old, black with wire-frame glasses and a pleasant, soft-spoken manner. He helped Alex out of the space suit and stayed in the room when Alex finally did throw up. It turned out that he’d dealt with astronauts before.

“They’re all sick when they come down,” he explained.

“It goes with the territory. Or maybe I should say terra firma. That’s Latin for ‘down to earth.’ You’ll be fine by the morning.”

“Where am I?” Alex asked.

“You’re about ninety miles off the coast of Australia.

We were on a training exercise when we got a red alert that you were on your way down.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now you have a shower and get some sleep. You’re in luck. We’ve got a mattress made out of memory foam.

It was actually developed by NASA. It’ll give your muscles a chance to get used to being back in full gravity.” Alex had been given a private cabin in the medical department of the Kitty Hawk— in fact, a fully equipped

“hospital at sea” with sixty-five beds, an operating room, a pharmacy, and everything else that 5,500 sailors might need. It wasn’t huge, but he suspected that nobody else on the Kitty Hawk would have this much space. Cook went over to the corner and pulled back a plastic curtain to reveal a shower cubicle.

D o w n t o E a r t h

5

“You may find it difficult to walk,” he explained.

“You’re going to be unsteady on your feet for at least twenty-four hours. If you like, I can wait in the room until you’ve showered.”

“I’ll be okay,” Alex said.

“All right.” Cook smiled and opened the main door.

But before he left, he looked back at Alex. “You know—

every man and woman on this ship is talking about you,” he said. “There are a whole pile of questions I’d like to ask you, but I’m under strict orders from the captain to keep my mouth shut. Even so, I want you to know that I’ve been at sea for a long, long time and I’ve never encountered anything like this. A kid in outer space!” He nodded one last time. “I hope you have a good rest. There’s a call button beside the bed if there’s anything you need.” Cook left.

It took Alex ten minutes to get into the shower. He had completely lost his sense of balance, and the roll of the ship didn’t help. He turned the temperature up as high as he could bear and stood under the steaming water, enjoying the rush of it over his shoulders and through his hair. Then he dried himself and got into bed. The memory foam was only a couple of inches thick, but it seemed to mold itself to the shape of his body exactly. He fell almost instantly into a deep but troubled sleep.

He didn’t dream about the Ark Angel space station or his knife fight with Kaspar, the bald ecoterrorist who had 6

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been determined to kill him even though it was clear that all was lost. Nor did he dream about Nikolei Drevin, the billionaire who had been behind it all.

But it did seem to him that, sometime in the middle of the night, he heard the whisper of voices that he didn’t recognize but that, somehow, he still knew. Old friends.

Or old enemies. It didn’t matter which because he couldn’t make out what they were saying, and anyway, a moment later they were swept away down the dark river of his sleep.

Perhaps it was a premonition.

Because three weeks before, seven men had met in a room in London to discuss an operation that would make them many millions of dollars and would change the shape of the world. And although Alex had never met any of them, he certainly knew them.

Scorpia was back again.

2

“ D E A T H I S N O T T H E E N D ” I T WA S T H E SO RT of building you could walk past without noticing: three stories high, painted white with ivy, perfectly trimmed, climbing up to the roof. It stood about halfway down Sloane Street in Belgravia, just around the corner from Harrods, surrounded by some of the most expensive real estate in London. On one side there was a jewelry shop and on the other an Italian fashion boutique—but the customers who came here would no longer be needing either. A single step led up to a door painted black, and there was a window that contained an urn, a vase of fresh flowers, and nothing else. The name of the place was written in discreet gold letters. It read: Reed and Kelly, Funeral Directors. And beneath that, a brief motto: Death is not the End.

At ten thirty on a bright October morning, exactly three weeks before Alex landed in the Pacific Ocean, a black Lexus LS 430 four-door sedan drew up outside the front door. The car had been chosen carefully. It was a luxury model, but there was nothing too special about it, nothing to attract the eye. The arrival had also been exactly timed. In the past fifteen minutes, three other vehicles and a taxi had briefly pulled up and their passengers, either singly or in pairs, had exited, crossed the 8

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pavement, and entered the parlor. If anyone had been watching, they would have assumed that a large family had gathered to make the final arrangements for someone who had recently departed.

The last person to arrive was a powerfully built man with massive shoulders and a shaved head. There was something quite brutal about his face: the small, squashed-up nose, thick lips, and muddy brown eyes. But his clothes were immaculate. He wore a tailored silk shirt, a dark suit, and a cashmere coat, hanging loose. There was a large platinum ring on his fourth finger. He had been smoking a cigar, but as he stepped from the car, he dropped it and ground it out with a brilliantly polished shoe. Without looking left or right, he crossed the pavement and entered the building. An old-fashioned bell on a spring jangled as the door opened and closed.

He found himself in a wood-paneled reception room where an elderly, gray-haired man, also wearing a suit, sat with his hands folded behind a narrow desk. He looked at the new arrival with a mixture of sympathy and politeness.

“Good morning,” he said. “How can we be of service?”

“I have come about a death,” the visitor replied.

“Someone close to you?”

“My brother. But I hadn’t seen him for some years.”

“You have my condolences.”

The same words had been spoken seven times that

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 9

morning. If even one syllable had been changed, the bald man would have turned around and left. But he knew now that the building was secure. He hadn’t been followed. The meeting that had been arranged just twenty-four hours earlier could go ahead.

The older man leaned forward and pressed a button concealed underneath the desk. At once, a section of the wooden paneling clicked open to reveal a staircase, leading up to the second floor.

Reed and Kelly was a real business. There once had been a Jonathan Reed and a Sebastian Kelly, and for more than fifty years they had arranged funerals and cremations until, at last, the time had come to arrange their own.

After that, the undertaker’s had been purchased by a perfectly legitimate company and registered in Zurich, and it had continued to provide a first-class service for anyone who lived—or rather, had lived—in the area. But that was no longer the only purpose of the building in Sloane Street. It had also become the London headquarters of the international criminal organization that went by the name of Scorpia.

The name stood for “sabotage, corruption, intelligence, and assassination,” which were its four main activities.

The organization had been formed some thirty years before in Paris, its members being spies from different intelligence networks around the world who had decided to go into business for themselves. There had been twelve of 10

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them at first. Then one had died of illness and two had been killed in the field. The other nine had congratulated themselves on surviving so long with so few casualties.

But quite recently, things had taken a turn for the worse. The oldest member of the organization had made the foolish and inexplicable decision to retire, which had, of course, led to his being murdered immediately. Soon afterward, his successor, a woman called Julia Rothman, had also been killed. That had been at the end of an operation—Invisible Sword—that had gone catastrophi-cally wrong. In many ways this was the lowest point in Scorpia’s history, and there were many who thought that the organization would never recover. After all, the agent who had beaten them, destroyed the operation, and caused the death of Mrs. Rothman had been fourteen years old.

However, Scorpia had not given in. They had taken swift revenge on the boy and gone straight back to work.

Invisible Sword was just one of many projects needing their attention, for they were in constant demand from governments, terrorist groups, big business . . . in fact, anyone who could pay. And now they were active once again. They had come to this address in London to discuss a relatively small assignment but one that would net them ten million dollars, to be paid in uncut diamonds . . .

easier to carry and harder to trace than banknotes.

The stairs led to a short corridor on the first floor with a single door at the end. One television camera had watched the bald man on his way up. A second followed

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 11

him as he stepped onto a strange metal platform in front of the door and looked into a glass panel set in the wall.

Behind the glass, there was a biometric scanner that took an instant image of the unique pattern of blood vessels on the retina behind his eye and matched them against a computer at the reception desk below. If an enemy agent had tried to gain access to the room, he would have triggered a ten-thousand-volt electric charge through the metal floor plate, incinerating him instantly. But this was no enemy. The man’s name was Zeljan Kurst, and he had been with Scorpia almost from the beginning. The door slid open, and he went in.

He found himself in a long, narrow room with three windows covered by blinds and plain, white walls with no decoration of any kind. There was a glass table surrounded by leather chairs and no sign of any pens, paper, or printed documents. Nothing was ever written down at these meetings. Nor was anything recorded. Six men were waiting for him as he took his place at the head of the table. Following the disaster of Invisible Sword, now just the seven of them were left.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Kurst began. He spoke with a strange, mid-European accent. The last word had sounded like “chintlemen.” All the men at the table were equal partners, but he was currently the acting head. A new chief executive was chosen as fresh projects arrived.

Nobody replied. These people were not friends. They had nothing to say to each other outside the work at hand.

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“We have been given a most interesting and challenging assignment,” Kurst went on. “I need hardly remind you that our reputation was quite seriously damaged earlier this year. In addition to providing us with a much-needed financial injection following the heavy losses we sustained on ‘Invisible Sword,’ this new project will put us back on the map. Our task is this. We are to assassinate eight extremely wealthy and influential people exactly one month from now. They will all be in one place at one time, which provides us with the ideal opportunity. It has been left to us to decide on the method.”

Zeljan Kurst had been the head of the police force in Yugoslavia during the 1980s and had been famous for his love of classical music—particularly Mozart—and extreme violence. It was said that he would interrogate prisoners with either an opera or a symphony playing in the background and that those who survived the ordeal would never be able to listen to that piece of music again.

But he had seen the breakup of his country on the horizon and had decided to quit before he was out of a job.

And so he had changed sides. He had no family, no friends, and nowhere he could call home. He needed work, and he knew that Scorpia would pay him extremely well.

His eyes flickered around the table, waiting for a response. “You will have read in the newspapers,” he continued, “that the G8 summit is taking place in Rome this November. This is a meeting of the eight most powerful

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 13

heads of government, and as usual they will talk a great deal, have their photographs taken, consume a lot of expensive food and wine . . . and do absolutely nothing.

They are of no interest to us. They are, in effect, irrelevant.

“However, at the same time, another meeting will be taking place on the other side of the world. It has been arranged in direct competition with the G8 summit, and you might say that the timing is something of a publicity stunt. Nonetheless, it has already attracted much more attention than G8. Indeed, the politicians have almost been forgotten. Instead, the eyes of the world are on Reef Island, just off the coast of northwest Australia in the Timor Sea.

“The press have given this alternative summit a name: Reef Encounter. A group of eight people will be coming together, and their names will be known to you. One of them is a pop singer named Rob Goldman. He has apparently raised millions for charity with concerts all over the world. One is a billionaire, among the top-ten richest men on the planet. He created a huge property empire, but he is now giving his fortune away to developing countries. There is an ex-president of the United States. A famous Hollywood actress—Eve Taylor. She actually owns the island. And so on.” Kurst didn’t even try to keep the contempt out of his voice. “They are amateurs, do-gooders . . . but they are also powerful and popular, which makes them dangerous.

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“Their aim, as they put it, is ‘to make poverty history.’

In order to achieve this, they have made certain demands, including the cancellation of world debt. They want millions of dollars to be sent to Africa to fight AIDS and malaria. They have called for an end to war in the Middle East. It will come as no surprise to those of us in this room that there are many governments and business interests who do not agree with these aims. After all, it is not possible to give to the poor without taking from the rich, and anyway, poverty has its uses. It keeps people in their place. It also helps to hold prices down.

“A representative of one of the governments has been in contact with us. He has decided that the Reef Encounter should end the moment it begins—certainly before any of these meddlers begin to address the television cameras of the world—and that is our assignment.

Disrupting the conference is not enough. All eight of them are to be killed. The fact that they will all be in one place at one time makes it easier for us. Not one of them must leave Reef Island alive.”

One of the other men leaned forward. His name was Levi Kroll. He was an Israeli and about fifty years old.

Very little of his face could be seen. Most of it was covered by a beard, and there was a patch covering the eye that he had once, by accident, shot out. “It is a simple matter,” he rasped. “I could go out this afternoon and hire an Apache helicopter gunship. Let us say two thousand rounds of 30-millimeter cannon fire and a few Hellfire air-to-

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 15

ground laser-guided missiles and this conference would no longer exist.”

“Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as straightforward as that,” Kurst replied. “As I said in my opening remarks, this is a particularly challenging assignment. Why? Because our client does not wish the Reef Island eight to become martyrs. If they were seen to be assassinated, it would only add weight to their cause. And so he has spec-ified that the deaths must seem accidental. In fact, this is critical. There cannot be even the tiniest amount of doubt or suspicion.”

There was a soft murmur around the table as the other members of Scorpia took this new information on board.

To kill one person in a way that would arouse no suspicion was simple. But to do the same for eight people on a remote island that would doubtless have a tight security system . . . that was quite another matter.

“There are certain chemical nerve agents . . . ,” someone muttered. He was French, exquisitely dressed with a black silk handkerchief poking out of his top pocket. His voice was matter-of-fact.

“How about R-5?” Mr. Mikato suggested. He was a Japanese man with a diamond set in his tooth and—it was rumored—Yakuza tattoos all over his body. “It’s the virus that we supplied to Herod Sayle. Perhaps we could feed it into the island’s water supply . . .”

“Gentlemen, both of these methods would be effective but still might show up in the subsequent investigation.” 16

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Kurst shook his head. “What we require is a natural disaster, but one that we control. We need to eliminate the entire island with everybody on it, but in such a way that no questions will ever be asked.”

He paused, then turned to the man sitting at the end of the table opposite him. “Major Yu?” he asked. “Have you given the matter your consideration?”

“Absolutely . . .”

Major Winston Yu was at least sixty years old, and although he still had a full head of hair, it had turned completely white. The hair looked artificial, cut in the style of a schoolboy with a straight line above the eyes and the whole thing perched on top of a head that was yellow and waxy and that had shrunk like an overripe fruit. He was the least impressive person in the room, with circular glasses, thin lips, and hands that would have been small on a child. Everything about him was somehow delicate. He had been sitting very still at the table as if he was afraid he might break. An ornamental walking stick with a silver scorpion entwined around the handle rested against his chair. He wore a white suit and pale gray gloves.

“I have taken a very careful look at this operation,” he continued. He had a perfect English accent. “And I am happy to report that although on the face of it this seems to be a rather difficult business, we have been blessed with three very fortunate circumstances. First, this island, Reef Island, is in exactly the right place. Second, Decem-

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 17

ber 2, just a few weeks from now, will be exactly the right time. And third, the weapon that we require just happens to be here in England, in fact, less than thirty miles from where we are sitting now.”

“And what weapon is that?” the Frenchman demanded.

“It’s a bomb. But a very special bomb . . . a prototype.

As far as I know, there is only one in existence. The British have given it a code name. They call it Royal Blue.”

“Major Yu is absolutely right,” Kurst cut in. “Royal Blue is currently in a highly secret weapons facility just outside London. That is why I chose to hold the meeting here today. The building has been under surveillance for the past month, and a team is already waiting on standby.

By this evening, the bomb will be in our possession. After that, Major Yu, I am placing this operation in your hands.”

Major Yu nodded slowly.

“With respect, Mr. Kurst,” It was Levi Kroll speaking.

His voice was ugly, and there was very little respect in it.

“I was under the impression that I would be in command of the next operation.”

“I am afraid you will have to wait, Mr. Kroll. As soon as Royal Blue is in our hands, it will be flown to Jakarta and then carried by sea to its final destination. This is a region of the world where you have no working experience. For Major Yu, however, it is another matter. Over the past seven years he has been active in Bangkok, 18

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Jakarta, Bali, and Lombok. He also has a base in northern Australia. He has constructed and now controls a huge criminal network that goes by the name of shetou—

or, in English, snakehead. They will smuggle the weapon for us. The snakehead is a formidable organization, and in this instance it is best suited to our needs.” The Israeli nodded briefly. “You are right. I apologize for my interruption.”

“I accept your apology,” Kurst replied, although he hadn’t. It occurred to him that one day Levi Kroll might have to go. The man spoke too often without thinking first.

There was little left to be said. Winston Yu took off his glasses and polished them, using his gloved fingers. His eyes were a strange, almost metallic gray with lids that folded in on themselves. “I will contact my people in Bangkok and warn them the machine is on its way. I already have some thoughts as to its location with regard to Reef Island. And as to this conference with its high ideals, you need have no worries. I am very happy to assure you . . . it will never take place.” At six o’clock in the evening, two days later, a blue Renault Megane turned off the M11 highway, taking an exit marked Service Vehicles Only. There are many such turn-ings on the British highway system. Thousands of vehicles roar past them every hour, and the drivers never glance at them twice. And indeed, the great majority of them are

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 19

completely innocent, leading to service areas or to police traffic control centers. But the highway system has its secrets too. As the Renault made its way slowly forward and came to a shuddering halt in front of what looked like a single-story office compound, it was tracked by three television cameras, and the security men inside went onto immediate alert.

The building was in fact a laboratory and weapons re-search center, belonging to the Ministry of Defense. Very few people knew of its existence, and even fewer were allowed in or out. The car that had just arrived was unau-thorized and the two security men—both of them recruited from the special forces—should have immediately raised the alarm. That was the protocol.

But the Renault Megane is one of the most innocent and ordinary of family cars, and this one had clearly been involved in a bad accident. The windshield had shattered.

The hood was crumpled, and steam was rising from the grille. A man wearing a green anorak and a cap was in the driving seat. There was a woman next to him with blood pouring down the side of her face. Worse than that, there were two small children in the backseat, and although the image on the television screen was a little fuzzy, they seemed to be in a bad way. Neither of them was moving.

The woman managed to get out of the car—but then she collapsed. Her husband sat where he was as if dazed.

The two security men ran out to them. It was human nature. Here was a young family that needed help, and 20

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anyway, it wasn’t that much of a security risk. The front door of the building swung shut behind them and would need a seven-digit code to open again. Both men carried radio transmitters and nine-millimeter Browning automatic pistols underneath their jackets. The Browning is an old weapon, but it’s a very reliable one, making it a favorite with the special forces.

The woman was still lying on the ground. The man who had been driving managed to open the door as the two men arrived.

“What happened?” one of them asked.

It was only now, when it was too late, that they began to realize that none of this added up. A car that had crashed on the highway would have simply pulled onto the hard shoulder—if it had been able to drive at all. And how come it was only this one car, with these four people, that had been involved? Where were the other drivers?

Where were the police? But any last doubt was removed when the two security men reached the car. The two children in the backseat were dummies. With their cheap wigs and plastic smiles they were like something out of a nightmare.

The woman on the ground twisted around, a machine pistol appearing in her hand. She shot the first of the security guards in the chest. The second was moving quickly, reaching for his own weapon, taking up a combat stance. He never had a chance. The driver had been balancing a silenced micro-Uzi submachine gun on his

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 21

lap. He tilted it and pulled the trigger. The gun barely whispered as it fired twenty rounds in less than a second.

The guard was flung away.

The couple were already up and running toward the building. They couldn’t get in yet, but they didn’t need to.

They made their way toward the back, where a silver box, about two yards square, had been attached to the brickwork. The man carried a tool kit that he had brought from the car. The woman stopped briefly and fired three times, taking out all the cameras. At the same time, an ambulance appeared, driving up from the highway. It drew in behind the parked car.

The next phase of the mission took very little time.

The facility was equipped with a standard CBR air filtration system—the letters stood for “chemical, biological, and radioactive.” It was designed to counter an enemy attack, but in fact the exact opposite was about to happen as the enemy turned the system against itself. The man took a miniaturized oxyacetylene torch out of his toolbox and used it to burn out the screws. This allowed him to unfasten a metal panel, revealing a complicated tangle of pipes and wires. From somewhere inside his anorak, he produced a gas mask, which he strapped over his face. He reached back into his toolbox and took out a metal vial, a few inches long, with a nozzle and a spike. The man knew exactly what he was doing. Using the heel of his hand, he jammed the spike into one of the pipes. Finally, he turned the nozzle.

22

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The hiss was almost inaudible as a stream of potas-sium cyanide mixed with the air circulating inside the building. Meanwhile, four men dressed as paramedics but all wearing gas masks had approached the front door.

One of them pressed a magnetized box, no bigger than a cigarette pack, against the lock. He stepped back. There was an explosion. The door swung open.

It was early evening, and only half a dozen people had still been working inside the facility. Most of them were technicians. One was an armed security guard. He had been trying to make a telephone call when the gas had hit him. He was lying on the floor, a look of surprise on his face. The receiver was still in his hand.

Through the entrance hall, down a corridor, and through a door marked RESTRICTED AREA . . . the four paramedics knew exactly where they were going. The bomb was in front of them. It looked remarkably old-fashioned, like something out of World War II—a huge metal cylinder, silver in color, flat at one end, pointed at the other. Only a data screen, built into the side, and a series of digital controls brought it back into the twenty-first century. It was strapped down to a power-assisted cart, and the whole thing would fit inside the ambulance with just inches to spare. But that, of course, was why the ambulance had been chosen.

They guided it back down the corridor and out through the front door. The ambulance was equipped with a ramp, and it rolled smoothly into the back, allow-

“ D e a t h I s N o t t h e E n d ” 23

ing room for the driver and one passenger in the front.

The other three men and the woman climbed into the car.

The dummies of the children were left behind. The entire operation had taken eight and a half minutes. Thirty seconds less than planned.

An hour later, by the time the alarm had been raised in London and other parts of the country, everyone involved had disappeared. They had discarded the wigs, contact lenses, and facial padding that had completely changed their appearance. The two vehicles had been incinerated.

And the weapon known as Royal Blue had already begun its journey east.

3

V I S A P R O B L E M S

“A L E X R I D E R . ”

The blind man spoke the two words as if they had only just occurred to him. He let them roll over his tongue, tasting them like a fine wine. He was sitting in a soft leather armchair, the sort of furniture that would have been normal in an executive office but that was surprising in a plane, twenty-five thousand feet above Adelaide.

The plane was a Gulfstream V executive jet that had been specially adapted for its current use, equipped with a kitchen and bathroom, a satellite link for worldwide communications, a forty-inch plasma TV connected to three twenty-four-hour news services, and a bank of computers. There was even a basket for Garth, the blind man’s guide dog.

The man’s name was Ethan Brooke, and he was the chief executive of the Covert Action Division of ASIS—

the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. His department was inevitably known as CAD, but only by the people who worked in it. Very few other people even knew it existed.

Brooke was a large man, in his mid-fifties, with sand-colored hair and ruddy, weather-beaten cheeks that V i s a P r o b l e m s

25

suggested years spent outdoors. He had indeed been a soldier, a lieutenant colonel with the commandos, until a land mine in East Timor had sent him first into the hospital for three months and then into a new career in intelligence. He wore Armani sunglasses, tinted silver, rather than the traditional black glasses of a blind man, and his clothes were casual: jeans, a jacket, and an open-neck shirt. A senior minister in the Australian defense department had once complained about the way he dressed. That same minister was now carrying luggage in a three-star Sydney hotel.

He was not alone. Sitting opposite him was a second man, almost half his age, slim, with short, fair hair. He was wearing a suit. Marc Damon had applied to join Australian intelligence the day after he had left the university.

He had done this by breaking into the main offices of ASIS in Canberra and leaving his application on Brooke’s desk. The two of them had now worked together for six years.

It was Damon who had produced the file—marked TOP SECRET: CAD EYES ONLY—that lay on the table between them. Although its contents had been translated into Braille, Brooke no longer had any need to refer to them. He had read the pages once and had instantly memorized their contents. He now knew everything he needed about the boy called Alex Rider. The only part that was missing from his consciousness was a true pic-26

S N A K E H E A D

ture of the fourteen-year-old. There was a photograph attached to the cover, but as always he had been forced to rely on the official report:

Physical description/attributes

Subject is five feet, seven inches tall, still short for his age, but this adds to his operational value. Weight: 140

pounds. Hair color: fair. Eyes: brown. His physical condition is excellent but may have been compromised by his recent injury (see Scorpia file). The boy is known to be fluent in two languages—French and Spanish—and is also proficient in German. He has practiced karate since the age of eight and has reached first kyu grade (black belt). Weapons training: none. Progress at school has been slow, with negative feedback from many of his teachers. Spring and summer reports from Brookland School are attached. However, it must be remembered that he has been absent from class for much of the past nine months.

Psychological profile

AR was recruited by the Special Operations Division of MI6 in March of this year, age fourteen years and one month. His father was John Rider—alias Hunter—who was killed in action. His mother died at the same time, and he was brought up by his uncle, Ian Rider, also an active agent with MI6.

It seems certain that the boy was physically and mentally prepared for intelligence work from the earliest age.

V i s a P r o b l e m s

27

Quite apart from the languages and martial arts, Ian Rider equipped him with many skills, including fencing, mountain climbing, white-water rafting, and scuba diving.

And yet, despite his obvious aptitude for intelligence work (see below), AR has shown little enthusiasm for it.

Like most teenagers, he is not a patriot and has no interest in politics. MI6 (SO) found it necessary to coerce him to work for them on at least two occasions.

He is popular at school . . . when he is there. Hobbies: soccer (Chelsea supporter), tennis, music, movies. Evident interest in girls—see separate file on Sabina Pleasure

+ report by CIA operative Tamara Knight. Lives with American housekeeper, Jack Starbright (note: despite first name she is a female). No ambitions to follow his father or uncle into intelligence.

Past assignments—active service

The British secret service refuses to admit that it has ever employed a juvenile, and so it has been difficult to draw together any concrete evidence of his record as an agent in the field. We believe, however, that he has worked for them on four occasions. He has also been loaned to the United States, where he has been employed by the CIA with equal success at least twice.

United Kingdom: See Herod Sayle: Sayle Enterprises, Cornwall. Dr. Marius Grief: Point Blanc Academy, France.

Damian Cray: Cray Software Technology, Amsterdam.

Julia Rothman: Scorpia executive. Operation Invisible Sword.

28

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United States: FILES CLOSED. Possible link with General Alexei Sarov—Skeleton Key. Nikolei Drevin—

Flamingo Bay (termination of Ark Angel project).

Although it has so far proved impossible to confirm details, it appears that in the space of one year, AR has been involved in six major assignments, succeeding against impossible odds. He has survived assassination attempts by both Scorpia and the Chinese triads.

Current status: available.

Footnote: In 2006, the FBI attempted to recruit a teenage agent to combat drug syndicates operating out of Miami. The boy was killed almost immediately. The experiment has not been repeated.

Secret service files are the same the world over. They are written by people who live in a very black-and-white world and who, by and large, have no time for creative imagination . . . certainly not if it gets in the way of the facts. The various pages on Alex Rider had given Brooke a vague impression of the boy. They had certainly been enough to set his mind working. But he suspected that they left out as much as they revealed.

“He’s in Australia,” he muttered.

“Yes, sir.” Damon nodded. “He sort of dropped in on us from outer space.”

Brooke smiled. “You know, if anyone else told me that, I’d swear they were yanking my chain. He really went into space?”

V i s a P r o b l e m s

29

“He was pulled out of the sea a hundred miles off the west coast. He was sitting in the reentry module of a Soyuz-Fregat. Of course, the Americans aren’t telling us anything. But it’s probably no coincidence that according to NIWO, the Ark Angel space station blew up at around the same time.”

NIWO is the National Intelligence Watch Office. It employs around 2,000 people who keep up a constant surveillance on everything happening in the world . . .

and outside it.

“That was Drevin’s big idea,” Brooke muttered. “A space hotel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I always had a feeling he was up to no good.” There was a moment of turbulence and the plane dipped down. The dog, in its basket, whined. It never had cared much for flying. But then they steadied and continued in their arc over the clouds, heading northeast to Sydney.

“You think we can use him?” Brooke demanded.

“Alex Rider doesn’t like being used,” Damon replied.

“And from what I’ve read, there’s no way he’s going to volunteer. But it did occur to me that if we could find some sort of leverage, he would be perfect for what we need. Put a kid into the pipeline and nobody’s going to suspect a thing. It’s exactly the same reason the Americans sent him to Skeleton Key—and it worked for them.”

“Where is he now?”

30

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“They flew him over to Perth, sir. A bit of a hike, but they wanted him somewhere safe and they settled on SAS

HQ at Swanbourne. He’s going to need a couple of days to wind down.”

Brooke fell silent. With his eyes permanently covered, it was always difficult to work out what he was thinking—

but Damon knew that he would be turning over all the possibilities, that he would come very quickly to a decision and stick by it. Maybe there was no way that ASIS

could persuade this English kid to work for them. But if there was a single weakness, anything they could use to their advantage, Brooke would find it.

A moment later he nodded. “We could connect him with Ash,” he said.

And there it was. Simple but brilliant.

“Ash is in Singapore,” Damon said.

“Operational?”

“A routine assignment.”

“As of now he’s reassigned. We’ll put the two of them together and send them in. They’ll make a perfect team.” Damon couldn’t help smiling. Alex Rider would work with the agent they all called Ash. But there was just one problem. “You think Ash will work with a teenager?” he asked.

“He will if this kid’s as good as everyone says he is.”

“He’ll need proof of that.”

This time it was Brooke’s turn to smile. “Leave that to me.”

V i s a P r o b l e m s

31

• • •

The SAS compound at Swanbourne is a few miles north of Perth and has the appearance of a low-rise vacation vil-lage, although perhaps one with more security than most.

It stretches out next to the white sand and blue water of the Indian Ocean, sheltered from public view by a series of sand dunes. The buildings are clean, modern, and un-remarkable. But for the rise and fall of the barrier at the main gate, the military vehicles passing in and out, and the occasional sighting of men in khaki and black berets, it would be hard to believe that this is the HQ of Australia’s toughest and most elite fighting force.

Alex Rider stood at the window of his room looking out over the main square with the indoor shooting range on one side and the gymnasium and fitness center on the other. He wanted to go home and wondered how long they were going to keep him here. Certainly, his stay on the Kitty Hawk had been short enough. He had barely had time to eat breakfast before he had been bundled onto a Hawkeye jet, an oxygen mask strapped over his face, and then blasted off back into the sky. Nobody had even told him where they were taking him, but he had seen the name written in large letters on the airport terminal.

Perth. There had been a jeep parked on the runway, and the next thing he knew, he was bouncing through the very ordinary-looking suburb of Swanbourne. The jeep drove into the SAS compound and stopped. A single soldier was waiting for him, his face set, his mouth a straight line that 32

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gave nothing away. Alex was shown into a comfortable room with a bed, a TV, and a view of the sand dunes. The door was closed, but it wasn’t locked.

And here he was now. At the end of a journey that had been literally out of this world. He wondered what would happen next.

There was a knock on the door. Alex opened it. A second soldier in green-and-ocher battle fatigues stood in front of him.

“Mr. Rider?”

“I’m Alex.”

“Colonel Abbott sends his compliments. He’d like to speak to you.”

Alex followed the soldier across the compound. For the moment there was nobody else around. The sun was beating down on the empty parade ground. It was almost midday, and the Australian summer was already making itself felt. They reached a bungalow, standing on its own near the edge of the complex. The soldier knocked and, without waiting for an answer, opened the door for Alex to go in.

A thin, businesslike man in his forties was sitting behind a desk, also wearing battle fatigues. He had been writing a report, but he stood up as Alex came in.

“So you’re Alex Rider!” The Australian accent came almost as a surprise. With his short, dark hair and craggy features, Abbott could have been mistaken for an En-glishman. He reached out and shook Alex’s hand firmly.

V i s a P r o b l e m s

33

“I’m Mike Abbott, and I’m really pleased to meet you, Alex. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Alex looked surprised, and Abbott laughed. “Six months ago, there was a rumor that the Brits were using a teenage agent. Of course, nobody believed it. But it seems they’ve been keeping you busy, and after you took out Damian Cray . . . well, I’m afraid you can’t blow up Air Force One in the middle of London without someone hearing about it. But don’t worry! You’re among friends.”

Abbott gestured toward a chair and Alex sat down.

“It’s very kind of you, Colonel,” he said. “But I really want to get back home.”

Abbott returned to his own chair. “I can understand that, Alex. And I really want to send you on your way. We just need to fix a couple of things.”

“What things?”

“Well, you landed in Australia without a visa.” Abbott held up two hands before Alex could interrupt. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but it has to be sorted out. As soon as I’ve got the green light, I’ll book you on the first plane back to London.”

“There’s someone I want to call. . . .”

“I suppose you’re thinking about Jack Starbright. Your housekeeper.” Abbott smiled, and Alex wondered how he knew about her. “You’re too late, Alex. She’s been kept fully informed, and she’s already on her way. Her flight left Heathrow about an hour ago, but it’ll take her another twenty-five hours to arrive. The two of you will meet up 34

S N A K E H E A D

in Sydney. In the meantime, you’re my guest here at Swanbourne, and I want you to enjoy yourself. We’re right on the beach, and right now it’s the start of the Australian summer. So relax. I’ll let you know as soon as there’s any news about the visa.”

Alex wanted to argue but decided against it. The Colonel seemed friendly enough, but there was something about him that made Alex think twice before speaking.

You don’t rise up the ranks of the SAS unless you’re exceptionally tough—and there was certainly steel behind that smile.

“Anything else you want to know?”

“No thanks, Colonel.”

The two of them shook hands. “I’ve asked some of the boys to look after you,” Abbott said. “They’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Just let me know if anyone gives you a hard time.”

When Alex had been training with the SAS in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, a hard time is exactly what he had been given. But from the moment he left the bungalow, he saw that things were going to be different here. There were half a dozen young soldiers waiting for him on the other side, and they all seemed to be easygoing and eager to introduce themselves. Maybe his reputation had gone ahead of him, but he could see right away that the Australian special forces were going to be the complete opposite of their British counterparts.

“It’s great to meet you, Alex.” The man who was V i s a P r o b l e m s

35

speaking was about nineteen and incredibly fit, with a green T-shirt stretched tight over finely chiseled pectorals and arms that filled his sleeves. “I’m Scooter. This is Texas, X-Ray, and Sparks.” At first Alex thought they were using code names. But he quickly realized that they were actually just nicknames. All the other men were in their early twenties and equally fit. “We’re just heading for lunch,” Scooter went on. “You want to join us?”

“Thanks.” Alex hadn’t been given any breakfast, and his stomach was still empty from the day before.

They moved off as a pack. Nobody had even commented on his age. There was clearly no secret who he was. Alex began to feel a little more relaxed. Maybe a day or two here wouldn’t be so bad.

From inside the office, Colonel Mike Abbott watched them go. He had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He was married with three children, and the oldest was only a few years younger than the boy he had just met. He had been impressed. After all he had been through, Alex had a sort of inner calm. Abbott didn’t doubt that he could look after himself.

But even so . . .

He glanced again at the orders that he had received just a few hours ago. It was madness. What was being suggested was simply out of the question. Except that there was no question about it. He had been told exactly what he had to do.

And what if Alex was crippled? What if he was killed?

36

S N A K E H E A D

Not his problem.

The thought didn’t comfort him one bit. In twenty years, Mike Abbott had never questioned his commanding officers, but it was with a sense of anger and disbelief that he picked up the telephone and began to issue the instructions for the night ahead.

4

N O P I C N I C

ALEX WA S WORN OUT after all his traveling, and that afternoon he went back to his room and slept. When he was woken up—by the sound of knocking—the day was already drawing to a close. He went over to the door and opened it. The young soldier who had introduced himself as Scooter was standing there. Sparks was with him, holding a cooler.

“How are you doing?” Scooter asked. “We wondered if you’d like to come with us.”

“Where are you going?” Alex asked.

“A picnic on the beach. We’ll set up a barbecue. Maybe swim.” Scooter gestured at the compound behind him.

There was nobody in sight. “There’s a big exercise tonight, but we aren’t part of it, and the colonel thought you might like to see a bit of the ocean before you leave.” The last three words caught Alex’s attention. “Am I leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning. That’s what I’ve heard. So how about it?”

“Sure . . .” Alex had nothing else to do that evening.

He didn’t particularly want to watch TV on his own.

“Great. We’ll pick you up in ten minutes.” The two men walked off, and it was only much later, 38

S N A K E H E A D

when he was ten thousand miles away, that Alex would remember the moment and the way they had glanced at each other as if there was something that bothered them.

But if he noticed it at the time, he didn’t register it.

He went back into the room and pulled on his sneakers. The SAS had provided him with some fresh clothes, and he took a combat jacket out of the wardrobe. Scooter had talked about swimming, but the sun was getting lower and Alex had already felt a cool breeze rolling in. He thought for a moment, then took a towel and a spare pair of boxers, which would have to do instead of swimming trunks. Just as he was about to leave, he hesitated. Was this a good idea, heading off down the coast with a group of strangers, some of them as much as ten years older than he was? Suddenly he felt very alone and a long, long way from home. But Jack was on her way. Scooter had told him that he would be leaving the next day. He shook himself out of his mood and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Almost at once, a jeep drew up with Sparks driving and Scooter in the passenger seat. Texas and X-Ray were in the back with bags and coolers, blankets, and a guitar piled up around them. They had left a narrow space for Alex. As he climbed in, he noticed that Texas was balancing an automatic pistol on his lap, testing the mechanism.

“You ever fired one of these?” Texas asked.

Alex shook his head.

N o P i c n i c

39

“Well, now’s your chance. When we get out there, I’ll set up a few targets. See how you do.” Once again, Alex couldn’t shake off a vague feeling that something was wrong, but then Sparks turned on the radio and with a blast of music from some Australian band he had never heard of, they set off. It was going to be a beautiful evening. There were a few streaks of red in the sky but no clouds, and the sun—close to the horizon—was throwing long, stretched-out shadows across the ground. Scooter was slumped in his seat with one foot resting on the dashboard. X-Ray had his hand up, the wind streaming through his fingers. By the time they had passed through the barrier and hit the main road, Alex had relaxed. He only had one evening in Australia. He might as well enjoy it.

They followed the coast for about ten miles, then turned inland. Why had they come so far? Alex couldn’t shake off a sense of unease. After all, the compound at Swanbourne had been right on the beach to begin with.

They had already passed a number of suburban houses and shopping malls, but they soon left those behind, and by the time they had joined a four-lane highway, they were driving through open countryside. None of them spoke. It was impossible in the open-top jeep with the wind rushing past. The music pounded out, but any words were snatched away and lost. After about twenty minutes, Scooter turned around and shouted, “You 40

S N A K E H E A D

okay?” Alex nodded. But secretly he was wondering how far they intended to travel and when they would arrive.

The journey took over an hour. They came off the highway and took a road that cut through a wooded area.

Then they turned onto a track, and suddenly they were bumping over a rough, uneven surface with eucalyptus and pine trees pressing in on both sides. X-Ray had taken out a map. He leaned forward and tapped Sparks on the shoulder.

“Is this the right way?” he shouted.

“Sure!” Sparks shouted back without looking behind him.

“I think we’ve come too far!”

“Forget it, X-Ray. This is the right way . . .” There was a barrier ahead of them, similar to the one at Swanbourne except that it was old and rusted. There was a sign next to it.

MILITARY ZONE

Absolutely no admittance.

Trespassers will be placed under arrest and may be imprisoned.

Scooter slowed down and, without opening the door, Sparks leapt out of the jeep.

“Where are we?” Alex asked.

“You’ll see,” Scooter replied. “We come to a load of places around here. You’ll like it.”

N o P i c n i c

41

“We’ve come too far,” X-Ray insisted. “We should have turned off a mile back.”

Sparks had opened the barrier—it obviously hadn’t been locked—and the jeep rolled forward. As it passed him, he leapt back into the passenger seat, and at once Scooter stepped on the accelerator and they shot forward, bumping over roots and potholes.

It had become very dark. The last of the daylight had slipped away without Alex noticing, and suddenly the trees seemed very close, threatening to block the way ahead. The surface was getting worse and worse. Alex had to cling onto the side as he was thrown around, the coolers lifting themselves into the air and hanging there before crashing down again. Leaves and branches flickered briefly, a thousand black shadows caught in the headlights, before they whipped into the windshield and disappeared behind. The track didn’t seem to be going anywhere and Alex was having to fight back a sense of unease, wishing he hadn’t come, when suddenly they burst through a clump of foliage and came to a shuddering halt with soft sand underneath the wheels. They had arrived.

Scooter turned off the engine, and at once the gentler sounds of the evening surrounded them. Alex could hear the whisper of the breeze and the rhythmic breaking of the waves. They had come to a beautiful place: a private beach that curved around in the shape of a crescent with perfect white sand next to a black-and-silver sea. There was a full moon and a fantastic cluster of stars that 42

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seemed to go on forever, stretching to the very ends of the Southern Hemisphere.

“Everybody out!” Scooter shouted. He kicked the door open and tumbled out onto the beach. “X-Ray . . .

get me a Coke. Texas, it’s your turn to cook.”

“I always cook!” Texas complained.

“Why do you think we invite you?”

X-Ray turned to Alex. “You thirsty?”

Alex nodded, and X-ray threw him a can of Coke.

Meanwhile, Texas had begun to unload the jeep. Alex saw that the SAS men had brought sausages, burgers, steaks, and chops . . . enough meat to feed a small army.

But apart from a greasy, blackened steel grill, there was no sign of the promised barbecue. Scooter must have read his mind. “We’re going to build a bonfire, Alex,” he said.

“You can help collect wood.”

Sparks had taken the guitar out of the back. He rested it on his knee and strummed a few chords. The music sounded tiny, lost in the emptiness of the night.

“Okay. Here’s the plan,” Scooter said. It seemed that he was the natural leader even if all four men were the same age and rank. “Alex and I will fetch firewood. Texas can start setting things up. Sparks—you keep playing.” He took out a flashlight and threw it to Alex. “If you get lost, just listen for the music,” he said. “It’ll guide you back to the beach.”

“Right.” Alex wasn’t sure he would be able to hear the N o P i c n i c

43

guitar once he was in the woods, but Scooter seemed to know what he was doing.

“Let’s go,” Scooter said.

He also had a flashlight and flicked it on. The beam was powerful. Even with the moonlight, it leapt ahead, cutting a path through the shadows. Alex did the same.

The two of them moved away from the jeep, heading back up the track that had brought them here. The evening was warmer than Alex had expected. The breeze couldn’t penetrate the trees. Everything was very still.

“You all right?” Scooter asked.

Alex nodded.

“We’ll build a fire, get things cooking . . . then we can have a swim.”

“Right.”

They were still walking. It seemed to Alex that they had left the beach a long way behind them. He could still hear the music—but it was so distant that the notes seemed to have broken up and he couldn’t make out any tune.

“See if you can find any dead wood. It burns better.” Alex trained his flashlight on the forest floor. There were broken branches everywhere, and he wondered why they had come so far to collect them. But there was no point arguing. He reached down and gathered a few pieces, then a few more. It didn’t take him long to build up a pile . . . any more and it would be too heavy to carry.

44

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Clutching the wood to his chest, he straightened up and looked around for Scooter.

That was when he realized that he was on his own.

“Scooter?” He called out the name. There was no reply. Nor was there any sign of the SAS man’s flashlight. Alex wasn’t worried. It was likely that Scooter had already collected his first bundle and was making his way back to the beach. Alex listened for the sound of the guitar. But it had stopped.

Now he felt the first prickle of doubt. He had been so busy collecting the branches, he had lost his sense of direction. He was in the middle of the woods, surrounded on all sides. Which way was the beach?

Ahead of him, he saw a blink of white. A flashlight.

Scooter was there after all. Alex called out his name a second time, but there was no reply. It didn’t matter. He had definitely seen the light and, as if to reassure him, it flashed again. He headed toward it anxiously.

It was only when he had taken twenty or thirty paces that he realized that he was nowhere near the beach, that he had in fact been drawn even farther into the woods. It was almost as if it had been done on purpose. He was the moth, and they had shown him the candle. But just then the light vanished. Even the moon was invisible. Annoyed with himself, Alex dropped the wood. He could always pick more up later. All he wanted to do right now was to find his way back.

Ten more steps and abruptly the trees fell away. But he N o P i c n i c

45

wasn’t at the beach. Alex’s flashlight showed him a wide, barren clearing with little hillocks of sand and grass. The wood circled all around him. There was no sign at all of Scooter or the second, flickering flashlight that had brought him here.

Now what? Was Scooter playing a prank on him?

Alex decided to go back the way he had come. He might be able to pick up his own footprints. The pile of wood that he had dropped couldn’t be too far away. He was about to turn when something—some animal instinct—made him hesitate. About two seconds later, the whole world stopped.

He knew it was going to happen before it actually did.

Alex had been in danger so many times that he had developed a sense, a sort of telepathy, that forewarned him.

Animals have it—the awareness that makes their hackles rise and sends them running before there is any obvious reason. Alex was already throwing himself to the ground even before the missile fell out of the sky, smashing the trees into matchsticks, scooping up a ton of earth and throwing it into the sky, shattering the silence of the night and turning darkness into brilliant, blinding day.

The explosion was enormous. Alex had never felt anything like it. The very air had been turned into a giant fist, a boxing glove that pounded into him—hot and violent—

and for a moment he thought he must have broken a dozen bones. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t see. The inside of his head was boiling. Perhaps he was unconscious 46

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for a few seconds, but the next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground with his face pressed into a clump of wild grass and sand in his hair and eyes. His shirt was torn and there was a throbbing in his ears, but otherwise he seemed to be unhurt. How close had the missile fallen?

Where had it come from? Even as Alex asked himself these two questions, a third, more unpleasant one entered his mind. Were there going to be any more?

There was no time to work out what was going on.

Alex spat out sand and dragged himself to his knees. At the same time, something burst out in the sky: a white flame that hung there, suspended high above the trees.

Alex had tensed himself, expecting another blast, but he quickly recognized it for what it was: a battle flare light, a lump of burning phosphorus, designed to illuminate the area for miles around. He was still kneeling. Almost too late, he realized that he had turned himself into a target, a black cutout against the brilliant, artificial glare. He threw himself forward onto his stomach one second before a cascade of machine-gun bullets came fanning out of nowhere, pulverizing branches and ripping up the leaves. There was a second explosion, smaller than the first, this one starting at ground level and sending a column of flame shooting up. Alex covered his head with his hands. Earth and sand splattered all around him.

He was in a war zone. It was beyond anything he had ever experienced. But common sense told him that no war had broken out in Western Australia. This was a N o P i c n i c

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training exercise and somehow—insanely—he had stumbled into the heart of it.

He heard the blast of a whistle and two more explosions followed. The ground underneath him trembled, and suddenly he found that he could no longer breathe.

The air around him had been sucked away by the force of the blasts. More machine-gun fire. The entire area was being strafed. Alex glanced up, but even with the battle flares he knew there was no chance he would see anyone.

Whoever was firing could be half a mile away. And if he stood up and tried to make himself seen, he would be cut in half before anyone realized their mistake.

And what about Scooter? What about X-Ray and the others? Had they brought him here on purpose? Alex couldn’t believe that. What motive could they have to want him dead? Briefly, he remembered what X-Ray had said in the jeep. “We’ve come too far. We should have turned off a mile back.” And when they’d picked him up at the base, Scooter had said there was a big training exercise on that night. That was why they’d been free for a picnic on the beach. Some picnic! As impossible as it seemed, the four SAS men must have driven to the very edge of the war zone. Alex had managed to wander away from the beach when he was collecting wood and had chosen the worst-possible direction. This was the result—

a mixture of bad luck and stupidity. But the two of them were going to get him blown apart.

A rhythmic pounding had begun, perhaps a mile away, 48

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a mortar bombarding a target that had to be somewhere close by. As each shell detonated, Alex felt a stabbing pain behind the eyes. The power of the weapons was immense.

If this was just a training exercise, he wondered what it must be like to get caught up in a real war.

It was time to go. With the mortars still firing, Alex scrabbled to his feet and began to move, not sure which way he should go, knowing only that he couldn’t remain here. There was the scream of something falling through and a great whumph as it struck the ground somewhere over to Alex’s left. That told him all he needed to know.

He headed off to the right.

A crackle of machine-gun fire. Alex thought he heard someone shout, but when he looked around, there was no one there. That was the most unnerving thing, to be in the middle of a battle with not a single one of the combatants actually visible. A tree had caught fire. The entire trunk was wrapped in flames, and there were black-and-crimson shadows leaping all over the ground ahead. Just beyond, Alex caught sight of a wire fence. It wasn’t much to aim for, but at least it was man-made. Maybe it defined the perimeter of the war zone and he would be safer on the other side. Alex broke into a run. He could taste blood in his mouth and realized he must have bitten his tongue when the first bomb went off. He felt bruised all over.

Vaguely, he wondered if he might be hurt more than he actually knew.

He reached the fence—it was made of barbed wire N o P i c n i c

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and carried another sign: DANGER, KEEP OUT. Alex almost smiled. What danger could there possibly be on the other side that was worse than this? As if to answer the question, there were three more explosions no more than a hundred yards behind him. Something hot struck Alex on the back of the neck. Without hesitating, he rolled under the fence, then got up and continued running across the ground on the other side.

He was in a field. There was still no sign of the ocean.

He was surrounded by trees on all four sides. He slowed down and tried to take his bearings. His neck hurt. He had been burned by the little fragment of whatever it was that had hit him. He wondered if Scooter and the others were looking for him. He would certainly have a few things to say to them . . . if he ever got out of here alive.

He continued forward. His foot came down on something small and metallic. He heard—and felt—it click underneath his sole. He stopped. And at the same time, a voice came out of the darkness just behind him.

“Don’t move. Don’t even move a step . . .” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure roll underneath the fence. At first he thought it must be Scooter—but he hadn’t recognized the voice, and a few seconds later he saw that it was an older man with black, curly hair and the beginnings of a rough beard, dressed in full military gear and carrying an assault rifle. The bombs and the shelling seemed to have faded into the distance.

They must have been redirected at a target farther away.

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The man loomed up next to him, looking at him with unbelieving eyes. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“How did you get here?”

“What am I standing on?” Alex demanded. Part of him knew the answer. He hadn’t dared look down.

“The field is mined,” the man replied briefly. He knelt down. Alex felt the man’s hand press gently against his sneaker. Then the man straightened up. His eyes were dark brown and bleak. “You’re standing on a mine,” he said.

Alex was almost tempted to laugh. A sense of disbelief shivered through him and he swayed a little, as if he were about to faint.

“Stay exactly as you are!” the man shouted. “Stand up straight. Don’t move from side to side. If you release the pressure, you’re going to kill both of us.”

“Who are you?” Alex exclaimed. “What’s going on here? Why is there a mine?”

“Didn’t you see the sign?”

“It just said danger—keep out.”

“What more did you need?” The man shook his head.

“You shouldn’t be anywhere near here. How did you get here? What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“I was brought here.” Alex could feel a cold numbness creeping through his leg. It got worse, the more he thought about what lay beneath his foot. “Can you help me?” he asked.

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“Stay still.” The man knelt down a second time. He had produced a flashlight. He shone it on the ground. It seemed to take an age, but then he spoke again. “It’s a butterfly,” he said, and there was no emotion in his voice at all. “They call it that because of its shape. It’s a Soviet PFM-1, pressure-sensitive blast mine. You’re standing on enough high explosive to take your leg off.”

“What’s it doing here?” Alex cried. He had to fight the instinct to lift his foot off the deadly thing. His entire body was screaming at him to run away.

“They train us!” the man rasped. “They use these things in Iraq and Indonesia. We have to know how to deal with them. How else are they going to do it?”

“But in the middle of a field . . . ?”

“You shouldn’t be here! Who brought you here?” The man straightened up. He was standing very close to Alex, the brown eyes boring into him. “I can’t neutralize it,” he muttered. “Even if I had the training, I couldn’t risk it in the dark.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I’m going to have to get help.”

“Do you have a radio?”

“If I had a radio, I’d have already used it.” The man laid a hand briefly on Alex’s shoulder. “There’s something else you need to know,” he said. He was speaking softly. His mouth was next to Alex’s ear. “These things have a delay mechanism . . . a separate fuse that you’ll have activated when you stepped on it.” 52

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“You mean—it’s going to blow up anyway?”

“In fifteen minutes.”

“How long will it take you to find someone?”

“I’ll move as quickly as I can. If you hear a click—

you’ll feel it under your foot—throw yourself flat onto the ground. It’s your only hope. Good luck . . .”

“Wait . . . ,” Alex began.

But the man had already gone. Alex hadn’t even asked him his name.

Alex stood there. He had lost any sense of feeling in his leg, but his shoulder was burning and he was beginning to shiver violently as the shock set in. He forced himself to bring his body back under control, afraid that the slightest movement could bring a hideous end to this ordeal. He could imagine the sudden flash, the pain, his leg separated from his body. And the worst of it was that there was nothing he could do. His foot was glued to the device that was ticking away, even now, beneath him. He looked around. Although he hadn’t noticed it before, the mine had been placed on the top of a ridge, the ground sloping away steeply to a ditch at the bottom. Alex tried to work out the distances. If he threw himself sideways, could he reach the ditch before the mine exploded? And if the force of the blast was above him, would he escape the worst of it?

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of an empty field. He wanted to call out but was afraid to, in case he accidentally shifted his body weight. How long had it been since the man had left? Five minutes? Ten?

And how accurate was the timer anyway? The mine could go off at any time.

So did he wait? Or did he take his life into his own hands? Alex made his decision.

He took a deep breath, tensing his body, trying to think of the muscles in his legs as coiled springs that could launch him to safety. His right foot was resting on the mine. The left foot was on flat ground. That was the one that would have to do most of the work. Do it! Alex had to force himself, knowing that he might be making the worst mistake of his life, that seconds from now he could be crippled, in agony.

He jumped.

At the very last moment he changed his mind but continued anyway, launching himself down the slope with all his strength. He thought he felt the mine shudder very slightly as his foot left it. But it hadn’t exploded, at least not in the half second that he had left the ground. Automatically, he crossed his arms in front of his face, to protect himself from the fall—or from the blast. The slope was rushing past him, a dark streak at the corner of his vision. Then he hit the ditch. Water, cold and muddy, splattered into his face. His shoulder hit something hard.

Behind him, there was an explosion. The mine. Clumps of earth and torn grass rained down on him. Then nothing.

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His face was underwater. He pulled his head back, spit-ting mud. A plume of smoke rose into the night sky. The fuse must have given him three seconds before it detonated the mine. He had taken those three seconds and they had saved him.

He got unsteadily to his feet. Water was dripping out of his hair and down his face. His heart was pounding. He felt drained, exhausted. Briefly he lost his balance, put a hand out to steady himself, and winced as he caught it on the barbed wire fence. But at least he had found his way out of here. He rolled back underneath and tried to work out which way to go. Seconds later, the question was answered for him. He heard the sound of an engine, saw two beams of light cutting through the trees. His name was being called out. He hurried forward and found a track.

The four SAS men were in the jeep. This time X-Ray was driving. They were rolling slowly through the wood, searching for him. Alex saw that they had left the coolers behind. But Sparks had remembered his guitar.

“Alex!” X-Ray slammed on the brakes and at the same time Scooter leapt out of the passenger seat. He looked genuinely concerned, his face white in the glare of the headlights. “Are you okay? Jesus! We completely screwed up. We’ve got to get out of here. We shouldn’t be anywhere near.”

“I told you . . . ,” X-Ray began.

“Not now!” Scooter snapped. He grabbed hold of N o P i c n i c

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Alex. “As soon as the bombs went off, I knew what had happened. I looked for you, but we must have got separated. You look terrible, mate. Are you hurt?”

“No.” Alex didn’t trust himself to say any more.

“Get in. We’ll get you home. I don’t know what to say to you. We’re complete idiots. We could have gotten you killed.”

This time Alex took the front seat. Scooter climbed in the back with the others, and they set off back down the track and out toward the main road. Alex still wasn’t sure what had just happened—how the SAS men had managed to get themselves into this mess. Nor did he care. He allowed the noise of the engine and the cool night air to drift away, and seconds later he was sound asleep.

5

O N T H E R O C K S

T W O D AY S L AT E R , A L E X had put his experiences at Swanbourne behind him. He was sitting outside a café in Sydney, the opera house on one side, the great stretch of the Harbour Bridge on the other. It was the world’s favorite postcard view, and he had seen it many times. But now he was actually in it, eating vanilla-and-strawberry ice cream and watching as the Manly ferry came grinding into the dock, scattering the smaller craft all around it.

The sun was beating down and the sky was a dazzling blue. It was hard to believe that he was really here.

And he wasn’t alone. Jack had joined him the day before, bleary-eyed with jet lag but awake and bursting with excitement the moment she saw him. It had taken her twenty-six hours to get here, and Alex knew she would have been worrying all the way. Jack was meant to look after him. She hated it when he was away—and this time he had never been farther. From the very start she had made it clear that all she wanted was to get him onto a plane and take him back to London. Yes, it was cold and drizzling there. The English winter had already arrived.

Yes, they both deserved a vacation. But it was time to go home.

Jack was also eating ice cream, and although she was O n t h e R o c k s

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twenty-eight, she suddenly looked younger with her un-tidy red hair, her lopsided smile, and her brightly colored kangaroo T-shirt. More a big sister than a housekeeper.

And above all a friend.

“I don’t know why it’s taking so long,” she was saying.

“It’s ridiculous. By the time you get back, you’ll have missed half the semester.”

“They said they’d have it this afternoon.”

“They should have had it two days ago.” They were talking about Alex’s visa. That morning, Jack had taken a call at the hotel where they were both staying. They had been given an address, a government office in Macquarie Street, just past the old parliament building. The visa would be ready at four o’clock. Alex could pick it up then.

“Could we stay here a couple more days?” Alex asked.

Jack looked at him curiously. “Don’t you want to go home?” she asked.

“Yes.” Alex paused. “I suppose so. But at the same time . . . I’m not quite sure I’m ready to go back to school.

I’ve been thinking about it. I’m sort of worried I’m not going to be able to fit in.”

“Of course you’ll fit in, Alex. You’ve got lots of friends.

They’ve all been missing you. Once you’re back, you’ll forget any of this stuff ever happened.” But Alex wasn’t so sure. He and Jack had talked about it the evening before. After all he had been through, how could he go back to geography lessons and school lunches 58

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and being told off for running too fast down the corridor?

The day MI6 had recruited him, they had built a wall between him and his past life, and he wondered if there was now any way back.

“I’ve hardly been to school this year,” he muttered.

“I’m way behind.”

“Maybe we can get Mr. Grey to come over this Christmas break,” Jack suggested. Mr. Grey was the teacher who had given Alex extra tutoring during the summer.

“You got along well with him, and he’d soon help you catch up.”

“I don’t know, Jack . . .” Alex looked at the ice cream, melting on his spoon. He wished he could explain how he felt. He didn’t want to work for MI6 again. He was sure of that. But at the same time . . .

“It’s three thirty,” Jack said. “We ought to be on our way.”

They got up and made their way along the side of the opera house and up into the botanical gardens—the incredible park that seemed to contain the city rather than the other way around. Looking back at the harbor, the bustle of life below, and the gleaming skyscrapers stretched out behind, Alex wondered how the Australians had managed to get it all so right. It was impossible not to love Sydney, and despite what Jack had said, he knew he wasn’t ready to leave.

Together, the two of them made their way up past the O n t h e R o c k s

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gallery of New South Wales and into Macquarie Street, where the parliament building stood, two stories high, an elegant construction of pink and white that somehow reminded Alex of the ice cream he had just eaten. The address they had been given was just beyond, a modern glass block that was presumably filled with minor government offices. The receptionist already had visitor passes waiting for them and directed them to the fourth floor and a room at the end of a corridor.

“I don’t know why they couldn’t have just put you on a plane and sent you out of here,” Jack grumbled as they left the elevator. “It seems a lot of fuss about nothing.” There was a door ahead of them. They walked through without knocking and stopped dead in their tracks. There had obviously been some sort of mistake. Wherever they were, this certainly wasn’t a visa office.

Two men were talking to each other in what looked like a library, with antique furniture and a Persian rug on a highly polished wooden floor—Alex’s immediate impression was that the room didn’t belong to the building it was in. A golden Labrador lay curled up on a cushion in front of a fireplace. One of the men was behind a desk.

He was the older of the two, wearing a shirt and jacket and no tie. His eyes were concealed behind designer sunglasses. The other man was standing by the window with his arms folded. He was in his late twenties, thin and fair-haired, dressed in an expensive suit.

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“Oh . . . I’m sorry,” Jack began.

“Not at all, Miss Starbright,” the man behind the desk replied. “Please come in.”

“We’re looking for the visa office,” Jack said.

“Sit down. I take it Alex is with you? The question may seem odd, but I’m blind.”

“I’m here,” Alex said.

“Who are you?” Jack asked. She and Alex had moved farther into the room. The younger man came over and closed the door behind them.

“My name is Ethan Brooke. My colleague here is Marc Damon. Thank you very much for coming in, Miss Starbright. Do you mind if I call you Jack? Please—take a seat.”

There were two leather chairs in front of the desk.

Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Jack sat down. The man called Damon walked across and took a third seat at the side. Next to the fireplace, the dog’s tail thumped twice against the wooden floor.

“I know you’re in a hurry to get back to London,” Brooke began. “But let me explain why the two of you are here. The fact of the matter is, we need a little help.”

“You want our help?” Jack looked around her. Suddenly it all made sense. “You want Alex.” She spoke the words heavily. She knew now who the men were, or at least what they represented. She had met their type before.

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“We’d like to make Alex a proposition,” Brooke agreed.

“Forget it. He’s not interested.”

“Won’t you at least listen to what we have to say?” Brooke spread his hands. He looked completely reasonable. He could have been a bank manager advising them on their mortgage or a family lawyer about to read a will.

“We want the visa.”

“You’ll have it. As soon as I’m done.” Alex had said nothing. Jack looked at him, then turned to Brooke and Damon with anger in her eyes. “Why can’t you people leave him alone?” she demanded.

“Because he’s special. In fact, I’d say he’s unique. And right now we need him, just for a week or two. But I promise you, Jack. If he’s not interested, he can walk out of here. We can have him on a plane tonight. Just give me a minute to explain.”

“Who are you?” Alex asked.

Brooke glanced at Damon. “We work for ASIS,” the younger man replied. “The Australian Secret Intelligence Service.”

“Special Operations?”

“Covert Action. The two are more or less the same.

You could say that we’re the rough equivalent of the outfit that Alan Blunt runs in London.”

“I’ve read your file, Alex,” Brooke added. “I have to say, I’m impressed.”

“What do you want me for?” Alex demanded.

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“I’ll tell you.”

Brooke folded his hands, and to Alex it seemed somehow inevitable, unsurprising, even. It had happened to him six times before. Why not again?

“Have you ever heard the term snakehead?” Brooke began. There was silence, so he went on. “All right, let me start by saying that the snakehead groups are without doubt the biggest and most dangerous criminal organiza-tions in the world. Compared to them, the mafia and the triads are amateurs. They have more influence—and they’re doing more damage—even than Al Qaeda, but they’re not interested in religion. They have no beliefs.

All they want is money. That’s the bottom line. They’re gangsters, but on a huge scale.

“Have you ever bought an illegal DVD? The chances are that it was manufactured and distributed by a snakehead. And the profits they’ll have made out of it will have gone straight into one of their other concerns, which you may not find so amusing. Maybe it’s drugs or slaves or body parts. You need a new kidney or a heart? The snakeheads operate the biggest market in illegal organs, and they’re not fussy about where they get them or even if the donors are deceased. And then there are weapons. In this century alone, there have been at least fifty wars around the world that have used weapons supplied by the snakeheads . . . shoulder-launched missiles, AK-47s, that sort of thing. Where do you think the terrorists go if they want a bomb or a gun or something nasty and biological that O n t h e R o c k s

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comes in a test tube? Think of it as an international su-permarket, Alex. But everything it sells is bad.

“What else can you buy? You name it! Paintings stolen from museums. Diamonds mined illegally using slave labor. Ancient artifacts plundered from Iraq. Elephant’s tusks or tiger skin rugs. A few years ago a hundred kids died on the island of Haiti because someone had sold them cough medicine that happened to contain antifreeze.

That was a snakehead—and I don’t think they offered anyone their money back.

“But the biggest moneymaker for the snakeheads is people smuggling. You probably have no idea how many people there are being smuggled from one country to another all around the world. These are some of the poorest families in the world, desperate to build themselves a new life in the West. Some of them are fleeing hopelessness and starvation. Others are threatened in their own countries with prison and torture.” Brooke paused and looked directly at Alex, fixing him with his sightless eyes.

“Half of them are under the age of eighteen,” he said.

“About five percent of them are younger than you—

and they’re traveling on their own. The lucky ones get picked up by the authorities. What happens to the rest of them . . . you don’t want to know.

“Illegal immigration is a huge problem for Australia, and the people smugglers just make it worse. The immigrants want to break in, and the smugglers sell them tickets. Many of them start in Iraq and Afghanistan. They 64

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come in boats from Bali, Flores, Lombok, and Jakarta.

What’s sad is that my country used to welcome immigrants. We were all of us once immigrants ourselves. All of that’s changed now—and I have to say, the way we treat these people leaves a lot to be desired. But what can we do? The answer is, we have to stop them from coming. And one of the main ways to do that is to take on the snakeheads face-to-face.

“There’s one snakehead in particular. It operates throughout Indonesia, and it’s more powerful and more dangerous than any of them. As it happens, we know the name of the man in charge. A certain Major Yu. But that’s all we’ve managed to find out. We don’t know what he looks like or where he lives. Twice now, we’ve tried to infiltrate the organization. We put agents inside, pretending to be customers.”

“What happened to them?” Jack asked.

“They both died.” It was Damon who had answered the question.

“And so now I suppose you’re thinking about sending Alex.”

“We have no idea how our agents were uncovered,” Brooke went on. It was as if Jack hadn’t spoken. “Somehow this man—Yu—seems to know everything we’re doing. Either that, or he’s very careful. The trouble is, these gangs operate under a system known as guanxi. Basically, it means that everyone knows everyone. They’re O n t h e R o c k s

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like a family. And the fact is, a single agent, coming in from outside and operating on his own, is too obvious.

We need to get inside the snakehead in a way that is completely original and also above suspicion.”

“A man and a boy,” Damon said.

“We have an agent in Bangkok now. We’ve set him up as a refugee from Afghanistan planning to be smuggled into Australia. He’ll meet with the snakehead and gather names, faces, phone numbers, addresses . . . anything he can. But he won’t be on his own. He’ll be traveling with his son.”

“We’ll fly you to Bangkok,” Damon continued, speaking directly to Alex. “You’ll join our agent there, and the two of you will be passed down the pipeline back here.

And here’s the deal. As soon as you’re back on Australian soil, we’ll send you first class direct to England. You won’t have to do anything, Alex. But you’ll provide perfect cover for our man. He’ll get the information we need, and maybe we’ll be able to break up Yu’s network once and for all.”

“Why Bangkok?” There were a hundred questions Alex could have asked. This was the first one that came to his mind.

“Bangkok is a major center for the sale of false documents,” Damon replied. “In fact, we’d very much like to know who supplies Yu’s people with fake passports, ex-port certificates, and the rest of it. And now we have a 66

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chance. Our agent was told to wait there until he was contacted. He’ll be given the papers he needs, and then he’ll continue the journey south.”

There was a brief silence.

Then Jack Starbright shook her head. “All right,” she said. “We’ve listened to your proposition, Mr. Brooke.

Now you can listen to my answer. It’s NO! Forget it! You said it yourself. These people are dangerous. Two of your spies have already been killed. There’s no way I’m going to allow Alex into that.”

Alex glanced briefly at Jack. She hadn’t given him a chance to speak, and he understood why. She had been afraid of what he might say.

Brooke seemed to have picked up on that too. “I’d have thought after all Alex has been through, he could have made up his own mind,” he said.

“He can make up his own mind. And I’m telling you what he’s going to say. The answer’s no!”

“There is one thing we haven’t mentioned.” Brooke rested his hands on his desk. His face gave nothing away, but Damon knew what was about to come. His boss was the poker player, preparing to show his hand. “I didn’t tell you the name of our agent in Bangkok.”

“And who is that?” Jack asked.

“You know him, I think. His name is Ash.” Jack sat back, unable to keep the shock out of her eyes.

“Ash?” she faltered.

“That’s right.”

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Alex had seen the effect the name had had on her.

“Who’s Ash?” he demanded.

“You don’t know him?” Brooke was enjoying himself now, though of all the people in the room, only Damon could see it. He turned to Jack. “Maybe you’d like to explain.”

“Ash was someone who knew your dad,” Jack muttered.

“He was rather more than that,” Brooke corrected her.

“Ash was John Rider’s closest friend. He was the best man at your parents’ wedding. He’s also your godfather, Alex.”

“My . . . ?” Alex couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

He hadn’t even known he had a godfather.

“For what it’s worth, he was also the last person to see your parents alive,” Brooke went on. “He was actually with them the morning they died. He was at the airport when they got on the plane for the south of France.” The plane had never arrived. There had been a bomb on board, placed there as an act of revenge by the criminal organization known as Scorpia. That much Alex knew.

“Did you meet him?” Alex gazed at Jack. He was feeling completely disoriented, as if the ground had just been stolen from under his feet. She looked exactly the same.

“I met him a few times,” Jack replied. “It was just after I started working for your uncle. He used to come around and visit. You were the one he wanted to see. I knew he was your godfather.”

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“He disappeared. You must have been about four years old. He told me he was emigrating, and I never saw him again.”

“Ash was an agent with MI6,” Brooke explained. “That was how he and your father met. They worked together as a team. Your dad even saved his life once—in Malta.

You can ask him about that . . . if you meet. I think the two of you would have a lot to talk about.”

“How can you do this?” Jack whispered. She was looking at Brooke with utter contempt.

“Ash left MI6 and emigrated here,” Brooke continued.

“He came with great references, so we were happy to take him on at ASIS. He’s been with us ever since. Right now he’s in Bangkok, undercover—like I said. But there’s nobody better placed to pretend to be your father, Alex. I mean, he’s almost that already. He’ll look after you. And I think you’ll find him interesting. What do you say?” Alex said nothing. He had already made up his mind, but somehow he knew that Brooke wouldn’t need to be told. He had figured that out for himself.

“I need time,” he said at length.

“Sure. Why don’t you and Jack go and talk about it?” Brooke nodded, and Damon produced a white card. He must have had it ready in his pocket from the very start.

“Here’s a number where you can reach me. We’ll need to fly you into Bangkok tomorrow. So maybe you could call me sometime tonight?”

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• • •

“I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t possibly go,” Jack said. “It’s wrong.”

Alex and Jack had wandered over to The Rocks, the little cluster of shops and cafés that nestled on the very edge of the harbor, right underneath the bridge. Jack had brought them here on purpose. She wanted to mingle with the crowds somewhere bright and ordinary, a world apart from the hidden truths and half-lies of the Australian secret service.

“I think I have to,” Alex replied.

And it was true. Only an hour ago, he had been promising himself that he would never work for MI6 again.

But this was different—and not just because it was the Australians that were asking him this time. It was Ash.

Ash made all the difference, even though the two of them had never met and it was a name he had only just heard for the first time.

“Ash can tell me who I am,” he said.

“Don’t you know who you are?” Jack asked.

“Not really, Jack. I thought I knew. When Ian was alive, everything seemed so simple. But then when I found out the truth about him, it all went wrong. All my life he was training me to be something I never wanted. But maybe he was right. Maybe it was what I was always meant to be.”

“You think Ash can tell you?”

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“I don’t know.” Alex squinted at Jack. The sunlight was streaming over her shoulders. “When did you meet him?” he asked.

“It was about a month after I started working for your uncle,” she said. “At the time, it was just meant to be a vacation job, to support myself while I was doing my studies. I didn’t know anything about spies, and I certainly didn’t know I’d be sticking with you forever!” She sighed. “You were about seven years old. Do you really not remember him?”

Alex shook his head.

“He was in London for a few weeks, staying in a hotel.

But he came over to the house two or three times. Now I come to think of it, he never did talk to you very much.

Maybe he felt awkward with kids. But I got to know him a bit.”

“What was he like?”

Jack thought back. “I liked him,” she admitted. “In fact, if you want the truth, I even went out with him a couple of times although he was quite a lot older than me. He was very good-looking. And there was something dangerous about him. He told me he was a deep-sea diver. He was fun to have around.”

“Is Ash his real name?”

“It’s what he calls himself. ASH are his initials—but he never told me what they stood for.”

“And he’s really my godfather?”

Jack nodded. “I’ve seen photos of him at your chris-O n t h e R o c k s

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tening. And Ian knew him. The two of them were friends.

I never knew what he was doing in London, but he was eager to check up on you. He wanted to be sure you were okay.”

Alex drew a deep breath. “You don’t know what it’s like, not having parents,” he began. “It never used to bother me because I was so small when they died and I had Uncle Ian. But now I wonder about them. And it sometimes feels like there’s a hole in my life, a sort of emptiness. I look back, but there’s nothing there. Maybe if I spend some time with this man—even if I do have to dress up like an Afghan refugee—maybe it’ll fill something in for me.”

“But Alex . . .” Jack looked at him, and he could see she was afraid. “You heard what that man said. This could be terribly dangerous. You’ve been lucky so far, but your luck can’t last forever. These people—the snakehead—

they sound horrible. You shouldn’t get involved.”

“I have to, Jack. Ash worked with my dad. He was with him the day he died. I didn’t know he existed until today, but now I’ve got to meet him.” Alex forced a smile to his lips. “My dad was a spy. My uncle was a spy. And now it turns out I’ve got a godfather who’s a spy. You have to admit, it certainly runs in the family.” Jack rested her hands on Alex’s shoulders. Behind them, the sun was already setting, reflecting bloodred in the water. The shops were beginning to empty. The bridge hung over them, casting a dark shadow.

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“Is there anything I can say to stop you?” she asked.

“Yes.” Alex looked her straight in the eyes. “But please don’t.”

“All right.” She nodded. “But I’ll be worried sick about you. You know that. Just make sure you look after yourself. And tell Ash from me that I want you home by Christmas. And maybe this time, just for once, he’ll remember to send a card.”

Quickly, she turned around and continued walking.

Alex waited a minute, then followed. Bangkok. The snakehead. Another mission. The truth was that Alex had always suspected it might happen—but even he hadn’t thought it would come so soon.

6

C I T Y O F A N G E L S ?

T W E N T Y - F O U R H O U R S L AT E R , Alex touched down at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok. Even the name warned him that he had arrived at the gateway to a world that would be completely alien to him. For all his travels, he had never been to the East, and yet now, following the thirteen-hour flight from Sydney, he was on his own. Jack had wanted to travel with him but he had decided against it. He’d found it easier to say good-bye to her at the hotel. He knew that he needed time to prepare himself for what might lie ahead.

He had met once more with Brooke and Damon the night before. There hadn’t been much more to say. Alex was booked into a room at the Peninsula Hotel in Bangkok. A driver would meet him at the airport and take him there. Ash would meet him as soon as he arrived.

“You realize we’ll have to disguise you,” Brooke said.

“You don’t look anything like an Afghan.”

“And I don’t speak their language,” Alex added.

“That’s not a problem. You’re a child and a refugee.

No one will be expecting you to say anything.” The flight had seemed endless. ASIS had booked him in business class, but in a way that made him feel all the more alienated and alone. He watched a movie, ate a 74

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meal, and rested. But nobody spoke to him. He was in a strange metal bubble, surrounded by strangers, being carried once again toward danger and possible death. Alex looked out the window at the gray-pink light glowing at the edge of the world and wondered. Was he making a mistake? He could get another plane at Bangkok and be back in London in twelve hours. But he had made his decision. This wasn’t about ASIS or the snakehead.

“He was the last person to see your parents alive.” Alex remembered what Brooke had told him. He was about to meet his father’s best friend. His godfather. This wasn’t just a flight from one country to another. It was a journey into his own past.

The 747 rumbled into its gate. The Fasten Your Seat Belt signs blinked off and the passengers stood up as one, scrabbling for the overhead bins. Alex had one small suitcase and quickly passed through immigration and customs and out into the hot, sticky air of the arrivals area. Suddenly he found himself in a crowd of shouting, gesticulating people.

“Taxi! Taxi!”

“You want hotel?”

It felt strange emerging from business class into this.

He was suddenly back in the noise and chaos of the real world. Down to earth in more senses than one.

And then he saw his name, being held on a placard by a Thai man—black-haired, short, casually dressed like almost everyone around him. Alex went over to him.

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“Are you Alex? Mr. Ash send me to collect you. I hope you had a good flight. The car is outside . . .” It was as they made their way out of the airport that Alex noticed the man with the poppy in his buttonhole. It was the poppy that first drew his attention. Of course, it was November. Remembrance Sunday, when the whole of England wore poppies and held two minutes’ silence for those killed in wars, would be taking place in England sometime around now. It was just strange to see any sign of it out here.

The man was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. He was European, in his twenties, with dark hair cut short and watchful eyes. He had very square features with high cheekbones and narrow lips. The man had stopped dead in his tracks and seemed to be staring at something on the other side of the arrivals area. It took Alex a moment to realize that the man’s attention was actually fixed on him.

Did the two of them know each other from somewhere?

He was just asking himself the question when a crowd of people moved between the two of them, making for the exit. When the floor cleared again, the man had gone.

He must have imagined it. Alex was tired after the long flight. Maybe the man had simply been one of the other passengers on the plane. He followed the driver to the parking garage, and a few minutes later they were on the wide, three-lane highway that led into Bangkok—or, as the Thai people called it, Krung Thep. City of Angels.

Sitting in the back of the air-conditioned sedan, gaz-76

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ing out the window, Alex wondered quite how it had gotten that name. He certainly wasn’t impressed by his first sight of the city, a sprawl of ugly, old-fashioned skyscrapers, blocks of apartments that were like discarded boxes piled up on top of each other, electricity and satellite towers. They stopped at a toll booth where a woman sat in a cramped cubicle, her face hidden behind the white mask that protected her from the traffic fumes. Then they were off again. Next to the road, Alex saw a huge portrait of a man: black hair, glasses, open-neck shirt. It was painted on the entire side of a building, twenty stories high, covering both the brickwork and the windows.

“That’s our king,” the driver explained.

Alex looked again at the figure. What would it be like, he wondered, to work at a desk inside that office? To pound away at a computer for eight or nine hours a day but to look out at Bangkok through the eyes of a king.

They left the highway, driving down a ramp into a dense, chaotic world of shrubs and food stalls, traffic jams and policemen at every intersection, their whistles screaming like dying birds. Alex saw tuk-tuks— motorized rickshaws—bicycles and buses that looked as if they had been welded together from a dozen different models. He felt a hollow feeling in his stomach. What was he letting himself into? How was he going to adapt to a country that was, in every last detail, so different from his own?

Then the car turned a corner. They had entered the C i t y o f A n g e l s ?

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driveway of the Peninsula Hotel and Alex learned something else about Bangkok. It was actually two cities: one very poor and one very rich, living side by side and yet with a great gulf between. His journey had brought him from one to the other. Now he was driving through a beautifully tended tropical garden. As they drew up at the front door, half a dozen Thai men in perfect white uniforms hurried forward to help—one to take the luggage, one to help Alex out, two more bowing to welcome him, two holding open the hotel doors.

The cold embrace of the hotel air-conditioning reached out to welcome him. Alex crossed a wide marble floor toward the reception area with piano music tinkling somewhere in the background. He was handed a garland of flowers by a smiling receptionist. Nobody seemed to have noticed that he was only fourteen. He was a guest. That was all that mattered. His key was already waiting for him. He was shown into an elevator—itself the size of a small room. The doors slid shut. Only the pressure in his ears told him that they had begun the journey up.

His room was on the nineteenth floor.

Ten minutes later, he stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the view. His suitcase was on his bed. He had been shown the luxury bathroom, the wide-screen TV, the well-stocked fridge, and the complimentary basket of exotic fruit. Alex tried to shrug off the 78

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heavy fingers of jet lag. He knew he had little enough time to prepare himself for what lay ahead.

The city was spread out on the other side of a wide brown river that curved and twisted as far as he could see.

Skyscrapers stood in the far distance. Nearer by, there were hotels, temples, palaces with perfect lawns, and—

standing side by side with them—shacks and slum houses and warehouses so dilapidated they looked as if they might fall over at any time. All manner of boats were making their way up and down the murky water. Some were modern, carrying coal and iron. Some were ferries with strange, curving roofs, like floating pagodas. The nim-blest were elongated, long and wafer thin with the driver leaning wearily over the tiller at the very back. The sun was setting. The sky was huge and gray. It was like looking at a television screen with the color turned off.

The telephone rang. Alex went over and picked it up.

“Hello? Is that Alex?” It was a man’s voice. He could make out a slight Australian accent.

“Yes,” Alex replied.

“You arrived okay then?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“I’m in the reception area. You feel like a bit of dinner?”

Alex wasn’t hungry, but that didn’t matter. Even though the man hadn’t introduced himself, he knew who he was talking to. “I’ll come right down,” he said.

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He hadn’t had time to shower or change after the flight. It would just have to wait. Alex left the room and took the elevator back down. It stopped twice on the way, letting people in on the ninth and seventh floors. Alex stood silently in the corner. He was suddenly nervous, although he wasn’t quite sure why. Finally, they arrived.

The elevator doors opened.

Ash was standing in the reception area, dressed in a blue linen jacket, a white shirt, and jeans. There were plenty of other people around, but Alex recognized him instantly, and somehow he wasn’t even surprised.

They had met before. Ash was the soldier in Swanbourne, the man who had told him he was standing on a grenade.

“It was all a setup, wasn’t it?” Alex said. “The training exercise. The minefield. All of it.”

“Yeah.” Ash nodded. “I expect that must make you pretty annoyed.”

“You could say that,” Alex growled.

There was an eating area just outside the hotel, softly lit, with the river in front of them and a long, narrow swimming pool to one side. The two of them were sitting at a table, facing each other. Ash had a Singha beer. He had ordered Alex a fruit cocktail: orange, pineapple, and guava blended with crushed ice. It was almost dark now, but Alex could still feel the heat of the evening pressing 80

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down on him. He realized it was going to take time to get used to the climate in Bangkok. The air was like syrup.

He looked again at his godfather, the man who had played such a major part in his early life. Ash was leaning back with his legs stretched out, untroubled by the trick that had been played at the beach near Swanbourne. Out of uniform, with his shirt open and a silver chain glinting around his neck, he looked nothing at all like a soldier or a spy. He was more like a movie star with his long, black hair, rough beard, and suntanned skin. Physically, he was slim —wiry was the word that sprang to Alex’s mind. Fast-moving rather than particularly strong. He had brown eyes that were very dark, and Alex guessed he could easily play the part of an Afghan. He certainly didn’t look European.

There was something else about him that Alex found harder to place. A certain guarded quality in the eyes, a sense of tension. He might look relaxed, but he never would be. He had been touched by something at some time, and it would never let him go.

“So why did you do it?” Alex asked.

“It was a test, Alex. Why do you think?” Ash had a soft, lilting voice. The eight years he had spent in Australia had given him an accent, but Alex could hear the English there too. “ASIS wasn’t going to use a fourteen-year-old boy—not even you. Not unless they were damn sure that you weren’t going to panic at the first sign of danger.”

“I didn’t panic with Drevin. Or with Scorpia . . .” C i t y o f A n g e l s ?

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“The snakeheads are different. You have no idea what sort of people we’re up against. Didn’t they tell you?

They’ve already killed two agents. The first one came back minus his head. They sent the second one back in an envelope. They’d had him cremated to save us the trouble.” Ash drank his beer and signaled to the waiter for another. “I had to see for myself that you were up to the job,” he went on. “We set up a situation that would have terrorized any normal kid. Then we watched how you dealt with it.”

“I could have been killed.” Alex remembered how the first bomb had blown him off his feet.

“You weren’t in any real danger. All the missiles were launched with pinpoint accuracy. We knew exactly where you were all the time.”

“How?”

Ash smiled. “There was a beacon inside the heel of one of your sneakers. Colonel Abbott arranged that while you were asleep. It sent out a signal to the nearest inch.”

“What about the mine?”

“It had less explosive in it than you probably thought.

And it was activated by remote control. I set it off a couple of seconds after you made that dive. You did pretty well, by the way.”

“You were watching me all the time.”

“Just put it behind you, Alex. It was a test. You passed.

That’s all that matters.”

The waiter arrived with the second beer. Ash lit a 82

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cigarette—Alex was surprised to see that he smoked—

and blew smoke out into the warm evening air.

“I can’t believe we’re finally meeting,” he said. He examined Alex closely. “You look a hell of a lot like your dad.”

“You were close to him.”

“Yeah. We were close.”

“And my mother.”

“I don’t want to talk about them, Alex.” Ash shifted uncomfortably, then reached out and drank some of his beer. “Do you mind? It was all a long time ago. My life’s moved on since then.”

“It’s the only reason I’m here,” Alex said.

There was a long silence. Then Ash smiled briefly.

“How’s that housekeeper of yours?” he asked. “Jack What’s-her-name. Is she still with you?”

“Yes. She said hello.”

“She was an attractive girl. I liked her. I’m glad she stuck by you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Well . . . I moved on.” Ash paused. Then suddenly he leaned forward. His face was utterly serious and Alex saw that this was a tough, cold-hearted man and that he was going to have to watch himself when they were together.

“All right. This is how we’re going to play it,” he began. “You’re in this smart luxury hotel because I wanted to ease you in. But tomorrow that all comes to an end.

We’re going to have breakfast, and then we’re going up to C i t y o f A n g e l s ?

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your room and you’re going to become an Afghan boy, a refugee. We’re going to change the way you look, the way you walk, and even the way you smell. And then we’re going out there . . .” He pointed across the river. “You enjoy your bed tonight, Alex, because where you sleep tomorrow night is going to be very different. And trust me.

You’re not going to like it.”

He lifted the cigarette and inhaled. Gray smoke curled out of the corner of his mouth.

“We should make contact with the snakehead in the next forty-eight hours,” he went on. “I’ll explain all that tomorrow. But this is what you’ve got to understand. You do nothing and you say nothing unless I tell you. You play dumb. And if I think the situation is getting out of hand, if I think you’re in danger, you’ll clear out. With no argument. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Alex was taken aback. This wasn’t what he had expected. It wasn’t what he’d flown six thousand miles to hear.

Ash softened. “But I’ll make you this promise. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, and when I feel I know you better, when the time is right, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. About your father. About what happened in Malta. About your mother and about you. The only thing I’ll never talk to you about is the way they died. I was there and I saw it and I don’t want to remember it. Is that okay with you?”

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Alex nodded.

“Right. Then let’s get some food in us. I forgot to mention . . . the stuff you’re going to eat from now on may not be to your taste either. And you can tell me a bit about yourself. I’d like to know what school you go to and if you have a girlfriend and things like that. Let’s enjoy the evening. There may not be a lot of fun ahead.” Ash picked up his menu, and Alex did the same. But before he could read it, a movement caught his eye. It was just chance, really. The hotel had a private ferry that ran between the two banks of the river—a wide, spacious boat with antique chairs placed at intervals on a polished wooden floor. It had just arrived, and it was the roar of the engine going into reverse that had made Alex look up.

A man was just climbing aboard. Alex thought he recognized him and his suspicion was confirmed when the man turned around and looked purposefully in his direction. The poppy had gone, but it was the man from the airport. He was sure of it. A coincidence? The man hurried on board, disappearing underneath the canopy as if anxious to get out of sight, and Alex knew that there was no chance about it. The man had spotted him in the arrivals area and followed him here.

Alex wondered if he should mention it to Ash. Almost at once he decided against it. It was impossible for the snakehead to know that he was here, and if he made a fuss, if Ash decided he had been compromised, he might be sent home before the mission had even begun. No.

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Much better to keep quiet. But if he saw the man a third time, then he would speak out.

So Alex said nothing. He didn’t even watch as the ferry began its crossing back to the other side. Nor did he hear the click of the camera with its special night scope and long-distance lens trained on him as his picture was taken again and again in the dwindling light.

7

F A T H E R A N D S O N

T H E N E X T M O R N I N G , A L E X ate the best breakfast of his life. He had a feeling he was going to need it. The hotel offered a hot-and-cold buffet that included just about every cuisine—French, English, Thai, Vietnamese—with dishes ranging from eggs and bacon to stir-fried noodles.

Ash joined him but spoke little. He seemed to be deep in thought, and Alex wondered if he wasn’t already having reservations about what lay ahead.

“You’ve had enough?” he asked as Alex finished his second croissant.

Alex nodded.

“Then let’s go up to your room. Mrs. Webber will be here soon. We’ll wait for her there.” Alex had no idea who Mrs. Webber was, and it didn’t seem that Ash wanted to tell him. The two of them went back up to the nineteenth floor. Ash hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and pointed Alex to a seat next to a window. He sat down opposite.

“Okay,” he began. “Let me tell you how this works.

Two weeks ago, working with the Pakistani authorities, ASIS managed to pick up a father and a son heading into India on their way here. We interrogated them and discovered they’d paid the snakehead four thousand American F a t h e r a n d S o n

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dollars to get them into Australia. The father’s name is Karim. The son is Abdul. Get used to the names, Alex, because from now on that’s you and me. Karim and Abdul Hassan. The two of them were given an address in Bangkok. They were told to wait there until they were contacted by a man called Sukit.”

“Who’s he?”

“It took us a while to find out. But it turns out we’re talking about a Mr. Anan Sukit. He works for Major Yu.

One of his lieutenants, you might say. Very high up. Very dangerous. It means we’re one step down the pipeline, Alex. We’re on our way.”

“So we wait for him to get in touch.”

“Exactly.”

“What about the real Adbul?” Alex asked. He wondered how he could pretend to be someone he had never even met.

“You don’t need to know much about him or his father,” Ash replied. “The two of them are Hazaras—a minority group in Afghanistan. The Hazaras have been persecuted for centuries. They get the worst education and the poorest jobs—in fact, most people think of them as hardly better than animals. Kofr— that’s the word they use for them. It means ‘infidel,’ and in Afghanistan it’s the worst four-letter word you can use about anyone.”

“So where did they get their money?” Alex asked.

“They had a business in the city of Mazar that they managed to sell just before it was taken from them. They 88

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hid out in the Hindu Kush until they made contact with a local agent for the snakehead, paid the money, and began their journey south.”

“I don’t suppose I look anything like an Afghan,” Alex said. “What do these Hazara people look like?”

“Most of them are Asiatic . . . Mongul or Chinese. But not all of them. In fact, a lot of them managed to survive in Afghanistan precisely because they didn’t look too Eastern. Anyway, you don’t need to worry. Mrs. Webber will take care of that.”

“How about language?”

“You won’t talk. Ever. You’re going to pretend to be a simpleton. Just stare into the corner and keep your mouth shut. Try and look scared . . . as if I’m about to beat you.

Maybe I will from time to time. Just to make us look authentic.”

Alex wasn’t sure if Ash was being serious or not.

“I speak Dari,” Ash went on. “That’s the language of the majority in Afghanistan and it’s the language the snakehead will use. I speak a few words of Hazaragi too—but we shouldn’t need them. Just remember. Never open your mouth. If you do, you’ll kill us both.” Ash stood up. While he had been talking, he had been grim—almost hostile. But now he turned to Alex with something close to desperation in his dark brown eyes.

“Alex . . .” He paused, scratching at his beard. “Are you sure you want to do this? ASIS has got nothing to do F a t h e r a n d S o n

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with you. People smuggling and all the rest of it . . . you should be at school. Why don’t you just go home?”

“It’s a little late now,” Alex said. “I agreed. And I want you to tell me about my dad.”

“Is that the main reason you agreed to this?”

“It’s the only reason.”

“I don’t think I could forgive myself if anything happened to you. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for your father.

That’s the truth of it.” Ash looked away, as if trying to avoid the memory. “One day I’ll tell you about it . . .

Malta, and what happened after Yassen Gregorovich had finished with me. But I’ll tell you this right now. John wouldn’t thank me for getting you into trouble. In fact, he’d probably chew my head off. So if you’ll take my advice, you’ll call Brooke. Tell him you’ve changed your mind. And get out now.”

“I’m staying,” Alex said. “But thanks anyway.” In fact, what Ash had just said—the mention of Yassen Gregorovich—had made Alex determined to learn more.

Suddenly things were beginning to come together.

Alex knew that his father, John Rider, had pretended to be an enemy agent, working for Scorpia. When MI6

wanted him back, they had arranged for him to be “captured.” That had been in Malta. But it had all been a setup. And Yassen Gregorovich had been there. Yassen was an international assassin, and Alex had met him fourteen years later—first when he was working for Herod 90

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Sayle, a second time inside the evil empire of Damian Cray. Yassen was dead now, but it seemed that he was still destined to be part of Alex’s life. Ash had met him in Malta. And whatever had happened on that island was part of the story that Alex wanted to know.

“You’re sure?” Ash asked him one last time.

“I’m sure,” Alex said.

“Very well.” Ash nodded gravely. “Then I’d better teach you this. Ba’ad az ar tariki, roshani ast. It’s an old Afghan proverb, and there may come a time when you need to remember it. ‘After every darkness there is light.’

I hope it will be true for you.”

There was a knock at the door.

Ash went over and opened it and a short, rather dumpy woman walked in, carrying a suitcase. She could have been a retired principal or perhaps a very old-fashioned schoolteacher. She was wearing a two-piece olive green suit and heavy stockings that only emphasized the fact that she had very shapeless legs. Her hair hung loose, with no apparent color or style. Her face could have been made of putty. She wore no makeup. There was a single brooch—a silver daisy—pinned to her lapel.

“How are you doing, Ash?” She smiled as she came in and that, along with her broad Australian accent, seemed to bring her to life.

“Good to see you, Cloudy,” Ash replied. He closed the door. “This is Mrs. Webber, Alex,” he explained. “She F a t h e r a n d S o n

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works for ASIS—a specialist in disguise. Her name is Chlöe, but we call her Cloudy. We think it suits her better. Cloudy Webber—meet Alex Rider.”

The woman stumped over to Alex and examined him.

“Hmmm . . . ,” she muttered disapprovingly. “Mr. Brooke must need his head examined if he thinks we’re going to get away with this one. But I’ll see what I can do.” She heaved the suitcase onto the bed. “Let’s have all those clothes off you, boy. Socks, boxers, the lot. The first thing we’re going to start with is your skin.”

“Wait a minute . . . ,” Alex began.

“For heaven’s sake!” the woman exploded. “You think I’m going to see anything I haven’t seen before?” She turned to Ash, who was watching from the other side of the room. “And it’s the same for you, Ash. I don’t know what you’re grinning about. You may look a bit more like an Afghan than him, but I’m going to have all your clothes too.”

She unzipped the suitcase and took out half a dozen plastic bottles filled with various dark liquids. Next came a hairbrush, a vanity bag, and several tubes that might have contained toothpaste. The rest of the bag was packed with clothes that looked—and smelled—as if they had come out of a trash can.

“The clothes are all from the thrift store,” she explained. “Donated in England and picked up in the market in Mazar-i-Sharif. I’ll give you two sets each, 92

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which is all you’ll need . . . you’ll wear them day and night. Ash—go and run a bath.” She unscrewed one of the bottles. The smell—seaweed and mineral spirits—

reached Alex even on the other side of the room. “Cold water!” she added sharply.

In the end, she let Alex take a bath on his own. She had mixed two bottles of brown dye with half a bath of cold water. Alex was instructed to lie in it for ten minutes, submerging both his face and his hair. He was shivering by the time he was allowed out and he didn’t dare look in the mirror as he dried himself—but he noticed that the hotel towels now looked as if they’d been dragged through a sewer. He pulled on a pair of ragged, shapeless boxers and came out.

“That’s better,” Mrs. Webber muttered. She noticed the scar just above his heart. It was where Alex had been shot and nearly killed by a sniper following his first encounter with Scorpia. “That might be useful too,” she added. “A lot of Afghan boys have bullet wounds. Together, the two of you make quite a pair.” Alex didn’t know what she meant. He glanced at Ash—and then he understood. Ash was just pulling on a shapeless, short-sleeved shirt, and for a moment his chest and stomach were exposed. He too had a scar—but it was much worse than Alex’s, a distinct line of white, dead skin that snaked across his belly and down below the waistline of his trousers. Ash turned away, buttoning up F a t h e r a n d S o n

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the shirt, but he was too late. Alex had seen the terrible injury. It was a stab wound. He was sure of that. He wondered who had been holding the knife.

“Come and sit down, Alex,” Mrs. Webber said. She had produced a tarp, which she had spread underneath a chair. “Let me deal with your hair.”

Alex did as he was told, and for next few minutes he heard only the click of scissors and watched as uneven clumps of his hair tumbled to the ground. From the way she worked, he doubted that Mrs. Webber had received her training in a London salon. A sheep-shearing farm was more likely. When she had finished cutting, she opened one of the tubes and smeared a thick, greasy ointment over his head. Finally, she stepped back.

“He looks great,” Ash said.

“The teeth still need work. They’d give him away in a minute.”

There was another tube of paste for his teeth. She rubbed it in, using her own finger. Then she produced two small plastic caps. They were both the size of a tooth, but one was gray and one was black.

“I’m going to glue these in,” Mrs. Webber warned him.

Alex opened his mouth and allowed her to fix the fake teeth into place. He grimaced. His mouth no longer felt like his own.

“You’ll notice them for a day or two, but then you’ll 94

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forget them,” she said. She stepped back. “There! I’m all done. Why don’t you get dressed and take a look at yourself?”

“Cloudy, you’re damn good,” Ash muttered.

Alex pulled on a faded red T-shirt and a pair of jeans—

both of them dirty and full of holes. Then he went back into the bathroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror. He gasped. The boy he was looking at certainly wasn’t him. He was olive-skinned, with hair that was short, dark brown, and matted in thick strands. Somehow the clothes made him look thinner than he really was. He opened his mouth and saw that two of his teeth seemed to have rotted and the rest were ugly and discolored.

Mrs. Webber came in behind him. “You won’t need to worry about the skin color for two weeks,” she said. “Not unless you bathe . . . and I don’t think you’ll be doing that.

You’ll have to check on the hair and teeth every five or six days. I’ll make sure Ash has plenty of supplies.”

“It’s amazing,” Ash muttered. He was standing at the door.

“I’ve got some sneakers for you,” Mrs. Webber added.

“You won’t need socks. I doubt a refugee boy would wear socks.”

She went back into the hotel room and produced a pair of sneakers that were stained and torn. Alex slipped them on.

“They’re too small,” he said.

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“No. I can’t wear them.”

She scowled at him, but even she could see that the sneakers were far too small. “All right.” She nodded. “You can hang on to your own. Just give me a minute.” She dug back into the suitcase and produced a razor, some old paint, and another bottle of some sort of chemical. Two minutes later, Alex’s own sneakers looked like they’d been thrown away ten years before. As he slipped them on, she set to work on Ash. He too had completely changed. He didn’t need to dye his skin, and his beard would have suited a Hazara tribesman. But his hair had to be hacked around, and he needed a completely new set of clothes. It was strange, but by the time she had finished, Alex and Ash really could have been father and son.

Poverty had brought them closer together.

Mrs. Webber packed again, taking all the clothes that Alex and Ash had been wearing with her. Finally, she zipped her bag shut and straightened up. She jabbed a finger in Ash’s direction.

“You look after Alex,” she commanded. “I’ve already had words with Mr. Brooke. Sending a boy this age into the field, I don’t think it’s right. Just you make sure he comes back in one piece.”

“I’ll look after him,” Ash promised.

“You’d better. Take care, Alex!”

And with that, she was gone.

Ash turned to Alex. “How are you feeling?”

“Grimy.”

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“It’s going to get worse. This grime is fake. Just wait till the real dirt gets stuck to you. Are you ready? It’s time we left.”

Alex moved toward the door.

“We’ll take the service elevator,” Ash said. “And we’ll find the back way out. If anyone sees us looking like this in the Peninsula Hotel, we’re going to get arrested.” The driver who had met Alex at the airport was waiting for them outside the hotel, and he took them over the river and then upstream toward Chinatown. Alex felt the air-conditioning blowing cold against his skin and knew that it was a luxury he wasn’t going to enjoy again for a while. The car dropped them off at a corner, and at once the heat, the grime, and the noise of the city hit him. He was sweating before the door was even closed. Ash dragged a small battered case out of the trunk and that was it. Suddenly they were on their own.

Bangkok’s Chinatown was like nowhere Alex had ever been before. When he looked up, it seemed to have no sky—all the light had been blocked out by billboards, ban-ners, electric cables, and neon signs. Tom Yum Kung Restaurant. Thai Massage. Seng Hong Dental Clinic (Great Smile Start Here). The sidewalks were equally cluttered, every inch of them taken up by stalls spilling food and cheap clothes and electronics into the street.

There were people everywhere, hundreds of them, weav-F a t h e r a n d S o n

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ing their way between the traffic, which seemed frozen in an endless, diesel-infested jam.

“This way,” Ash muttered, keeping his voice low.

From now on, whenever he spoke in English, he would make sure he wasn’t overheard.

They pushed their way into the chaos, and in the next few minutes Alex passed vegetables that he had never seen before and meats he hoped he would never see again: hearts and lungs bubbling in green soup and brown intestines spilling out of their cauldrons as if trying to escape. Every scent on the planet seemed to be mixed together. Meat and fish and garbage and sweat—every step brought another smell.

They walked for about ten minutes until at last they came to an opening between a restaurant—with a few plastic tables and a single glass counter displaying plastic replicas of the food it served—and a paint factory. Here at last was an escape from the main road. A soiled, narrow alleyway led down between the backs of two blocks of apartments—the apartments piled up on one another as if thrown there at random. There was a miniature altar at the entrance, the incense adding another smell to Alex’s collection. Farther down, a couple of cars had been parked next to a dozen crates of empty Pepsi bottles, a pile of old gas canisters, a row of tables and chairs. A Chinese woman was sitting cross-legged in the gutter, fixing ribbons to baskets of exotic fruit. Alex remembered the 98

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complimentary fruit basket that had been waiting for him in his hotel. Maybe this was where it had come from.

“This is it,” Ash said.

It was the address that Karim Hassan and his son had been given by the snakehead. This was where they were expected to stay.

All the apartments opened directly onto the alley, so that Alex could see straight in. There were no doors or curtains. In one front room, a Chinese man sat smoking at a table, dressed in shorts and glasses, his huge stomach bulging over his knees. In another, a whole family was eating lunch, crouching on the floor with chopsticks.

They came to a room that looked derelict—but it was occupied. An old woman was standing beside a stove. Ash signaled to Alex to wait, then went over and spoke to her, relying on sign language as much as words and waving a sheet of paper under her face.

She understood and pointed to a staircase at the back.

Ash grunted something in Dari and, pretending to understand, Alex hurried forward.

The stairs were made of cement, with pools of murky water on at least half of them. Alex followed Ash to the third floor and a single door with no handle. Ash pushed it open. On the other side there was a bare room with a metal bed, a spare mattress on the floor, a sink, a toilet, and a grimy window. There was no carpet and no light.

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climbed over the side of the bed and scuttled across the wall.

“This is it?” Alex muttered.

“This is it,” Ash said.

Outside, in the alleyway, the man who had followed them all the way from the hotel made a note of the building. Then he took out a cell phone and dialed a number.

At the same time, he walked quietly away, and by the time he had been connected, he had disappeared into the crowd.

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“ S U P P O S E T H E Y D O N ’ T come . . . ,” Alex said.

“They’ll come.”

“How much longer do you think we’re going to have to wait?”

They had been living in Chinatown for three days, and Alex was feeling hot, frustrated . . . and bored. Ash wouldn’t let him have a newspaper or a book in English.

There was always the chance that he might be caught reading it by someone entering the room. Nor was he able to see very much of Bangkok. There was no way of knowing when the snakehead might show up, and they couldn’t risk being out.

But Alex had been allowed to spend a couple of hours each morning wandering on his own through the streets.

It amused him that nobody treated him like a tourist—

indeed, tourists stepped aside to avoid him. Mrs. Webber had done her job well. He looked like a street urchin from somewhere far away, and after more than sixty hours without a shower or a bath, without even changing his clothes, he imagined he could be smelled long before he could be seen.

Slowly he managed to come to grips with the city, the way the shops and the houses, the sidewalks and the F i r s t C o n t a c t

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streets all tumbled into one another, the clammy heat, the never-ending noise and movement. There seemed to be a surprise around every corner. A cripple with withered legs, scuttling past on his hands like a giant spider. A temple sprouting out of nowhere like an exotic flower. Bald monks in their bright orange robes, moving in a crowd.

He also learned a little more about Ash.

Ash slept badly. He had given Alex the bed and taken the mattress for himself, but sometimes in the night he would begin muttering and then jerk awake. Then he would clasp his hand to his stomach and Alex knew that he was remembering the time he had been stabbed and that it was hurting him even now.

“Why did you become a spy?” Alex asked one morning.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Ash growled.

He hated being asked questions and seldom gave straightforward answers. But that morning he was in a better mood. “I was approached while I was in the army.”

“By Alan Blunt?”

“No. He was there when I joined—but he wasn’t in the top spot. I was recruited the year after your dad. I’ll tell you why he joined, if you like.”

“Why?”

“He was a patriot.” Ash grimaced. “He really thought he had a duty to serve his queen and country.”

“Don’t you?”

“I did . . . once.”

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“So what happened? What made you change your mind?”

“It was a long time ago.” Ash had a way of cutting off a conversation if he didn’t want to say more. Alex had come to learn that when that happened, there was no point in trying to go on. Ash could wrap silence around him like a coat. It was infuriating, but Alex knew he would just have to wait. Ash would talk in his own time.

And then, on the fourth day, the snakehead came.

Alex had just gotten back with food from the local market when he heard the stamp of feet on the concrete steps. Ash threw him a look of warning and swung himself off the bed just as the door crashed open and one of the ugliest men Alex had ever seen walked into the room.

He was short, even for a Thai, wearing a suit that looked as if it had shrunk in the wash to fit him. He was bald and unshaven, so that both the top and bottom of his head were covered in a thin black stubble. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to have any eyebrows—as if his skin were too thick and pockmarked to grow through. His mouth was impossibly wide, like an open wound, with as many gaps as teeth. Worst of all, he had no ears. Alex could see the discolored lumps of flesh that remained.

The rest had at some time been cut off.

This had to be Mr. Anan Sukit. There was a second Thai man with him, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, carrying a camera—a clunky wooden box that could have come out of an antique shop. A third man followed. He F i r s t C o n t a c t

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looked similar to Ash—presumably an Afghan brought along to translate.

Alex quickly sat down in the corner. He glanced at the three men but tried not to show too much interest, as if he didn’t want to be noticed himself.

Sukit snapped a few words at the translator, who then spoke to Ash. Ash replied in Dari, and a three-way conversation began. As it continued, Alex noticed Sukit examining him. The snakehead boss had tiny pupils that moved ceaselessly, traveling left and right across his eyes.

At the same time, the cameraman had started his work.

Alex sat still as several shots were taken of him. Then it was Ash’s turn. He had already explained to Alex what sort of papers would be prepared. Passports, possibly with visas for Indonesia. A police arrest form for Ash. A hospital report showing that he had been injured during questioning. Perhaps an old membership card for the Communist Party. All these things would help him get refugee status once he arrived in Australia.

The photographer finished, but the discussion went on. Alex became aware that something was wrong. Sukit nodded in his direction a couple of times. He seemed to be making some sort of demand. Ash was arguing. He looked unhappy. Alex heard his name—Abdul—mentioned several times.

Then suddenly Anan Sukit walked over to him. He was sweating, and his skin smelled of garlic. Without warning, he reached down and dragged Alex to his feet.

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Ash stood up and shouted something. Alex couldn’t understand a word that was being said, but he did what Ash had told him and stared with unfocused eyes as if he was a simpleton. Sukit slapped him, twice, on each side of his face. Alex cried out. It wasn’t just the pain. It was the casual violence, the shock of what had just happened. Ash let loose a torrent of words. He seemed to be pleading.

Sukit spoke one last time. Ash nodded. Whatever had been demanded, he’d agreed. The three men turned and left the room.

Alex waited until he was sure they had gone. His cheeks were stinging. “I take it that was Anan Sukit?” he muttered.

“That was him.”

“What happened to his ears?”

“A gang fight. It happened five years ago. Maybe I should have mentioned it to you before. Someone cut them off.”

“He’s lucky he doesn’t need glasses.” Alex rubbed the side of his face with a grimy hand. “So what was all that about?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand . . .” Ash was deep in thought. “They’re getting the papers for us. They’ll be ready this evening.”

“That’s good. But why did he hit me?”

“He made a demand. I refused. So he got angry—

and he took it out on you. I’m sorry, Alex.” Ash ran a F i r s t C o n t a c t

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hand through his long dark hair. He looked shaken by what had just taken place. “I didn’t want him to hurt you, but there was nothing I could do.”

“What did he want?”

Ash sighed. “Sukit insisted that you collect the papers.

Not me. He just wants you.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. He just told me they’d pick you up at Patpong at seven o’clock this evening. You’ve got to be there on your own. If you’re not there, we can forget it.

The deal’s off.”

Ash fell silent. He had lost control of the situation, and he knew it. Alex wasn’t sure how to respond. His first encounter with the snakehead had been short and unpleasant. The question was—what did they want with him? Had they seen through his disguise? If he turned up at this place—Patpong—they could bundle him into a car and he might never be seen again.

“If they wanted to kill you, they could have done it here and now,” Ash said. It was as if he’d read Alex’s thoughts. “They could have killed both of us.”

“Do you think I should go?”

“I can’t make that decision, Alex. It’s up to you.” But if he wasn’t there, there would be no forged papers, no way for Ash to find out where they were being manufactured. Nor would the two of them be able to continue down the pipeline. The mission would be over 106

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before it had even begun. And Alex would have learned nothing from Ash—about his father, about Malta, about Yassen Gregorovich.

It was a risk. But it was one worth taking.

“I’ll do it,” Alex said.

Patpong showed Alex another side of Bangkok—and not one that he wanted to see. It was a tangle of bars and strip clubs where backpackers and businessmen gathered to drink the night away. Through the doorways he glimpsed half-naked dancers writhing in time to western pop music. Fat men in floral shirts strolled past with Thai girlfriends. The neon lights flickered and the music pounded out and the air was thick with the smell of alcohol and cheap perfume. It was the last place on earth that a fourteen-year-old English boy would want to find himself, and Alex was feeling distinctly uncomfortable, standing at the entrance to the main square. But he’d only been there a few minutes when a beat-up black Citroën pulled over with two men inside. He recognized one of them. The man in the passenger seat had been carrying the camera and had taken the pictures of him and Ash.

So this was it. He had come to Thailand to investigate the snakehead and now he was delivering himself to them with no weapons, no gadgets—nothing to help him if things went wrong. Were they simply going to hand over the papers as promised? Somehow he doubted it. But it was too late for second thoughts. He climbed into the F i r s t C o n t a c t

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back of the car. The seat was plastic—and it was torn. A pair of furry dice swung beneath the driver’s mirror.

Nobody spoke to him, but then, of course, they didn’t know his language. Ash had warned him not to say anything, no matter what happened. One word of English would mean an immediate death sentence for both of them. He would pretend that he was simple, that he understood nothing at all. If things got out of hand, he would try to break away.

The Citroën joined in the sluggish flow of traffic, and suddenly they were surrounded by cars, trucks, buses, and tuk-tuks— the three-wheeled taxis that were actually nothing more than motorcycles with a makeshift cabin built on the back. As always, everyone was hooting at everyone. The heat of the evening only intensified the noise and the smell of exhaust fumes that hung thick in the air.

They drove for about thirty minutes. It had grown dark, and Alex had no idea in which direction they were heading. He tried to pick out a few landmarks—a neon sign, a skyscraper with a strange gold dome on the roof, a hotel. Part of his job was to find out as much about the snakehead as he could, and the following day he might have to show Ash exactly where he’d been taken. The car turned off the main road, and suddenly they were traveling down a narrow alleyway between two high walls. Alex was liking this less and less. He had the feeling that he was delivering himself into some sort of trap. Sukit had 108

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said he would hand over the papers, but Alex didn’t believe him. There had to be another reason for all this.

And then they broke out and he saw the river in front of him, the water black and empty but for a single rice barge making its way home. In the far distance, a tower block that he recognized caught his eye. It was the Peninsula Hotel, where he had spent his first night. It was less than half a mile upstream, but it might as well have belonged to a different world. The car slowed down. They had come right to the river’s edge. The driver turned off the engine. They got out.

The smell of sewage. That was what hit him first: thick, sweet, and heavy. The surface of the water was completely covered with a layer of rotting vegetables and garbage that rocked back and forth with the current like a living carpet. One of the men pushed him, hard, in the small of his back, and he made his way over to a broken-down jetty where a boat was waiting to ferry them across, another hard-faced Thai man at the rudder. Alex climbed in. The other men followed.

They set off. The moon had risen, and out in the open, everything was suddenly bright. Ahead of him, Alex could see their destination. There was a long, three-story building with a green-painted sign advertising it to any passing river traffic. Chada Trading Agency & Consultant. Alex didn’t like the look of it one bit.

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that held it about two yards above the water. It was made of wood and corrugated iron: a slanting, leaning assembly of roofs, verandas, balconies, and walkways that could have been hammered together by a child. It seemed to have no windows and few doors. As they drew closer, Alex heard a sound: a low shouting that suddenly rose up like a crowd at a soccer match. It was coming from inside.

The boat drew in. A ladder led up to a landing platform, and once again Alex felt a fist jabbing into his lower back. It seemed to be the only way these people knew how to communicate. He got unsteadily to his feet and grabbed the ladder. As he did so, he heard something splash in the water and saw a streak of movement out of the corner of his eye. Some sort of creatures were living in the dark space underneath the building. There was another roar from inside and the chime of a bell. How had he gotten himself into this? Alex gritted his teeth and climbed up.

Now he found himself in a narrow corridor that sloped down with doorways facing each other on opposite sides.

Naked bulbs hung at intervals, throwing out a damp yellow light. The whole place smelled of the river. Halfway down, they stopped at one of the doors, which was thrown open to reveal a room that was like a cell, a couple of yards square with a tiny barred window, a bench, and a table. There was a pair of bright red shorts lying on the bench. Cameraman—Alex didn’t know his name, and that was how he thought of him—picked up the shorts 110

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and spat out a sentence in Thai. This time the meaning was clear.

The door slammed shut. There was another roar from somewhere nearby, the sound echoing outward. Alex picked up the shorts. They were made of silk, recently laundered, but there were still dark spots embedded in the material. Old bloodstains. Alex clamped down the rising sense of fear. He looked at the window, but there was no way he was going to be able to climb out. He had no doubt the Thai men were standing guard on the other side of the door. He heard the whine of a mosquito and slapped it against the side of his head. He began to undress.

Ten minutes later, they led him back down the corridor and along to a flight of steps that seemed to have collapsed in on itself like a house of cards. Alex was now wearing the shorts and nothing else. They started high on his body, above the waist, and came down to his knees.

They were the sort of thing worn for a boxing or wrestling match. Which of them was it going to be? he wondered.

Or was he being led toward something worse than either?

He heard music playing. The crackle of a loudspeaker and a stream of words, amplified, all in Thai. Laughter.

The soft babble of many people talking. At last he emerged into a scene that was like nothing he had ever experienced before—and something he would never forget.

It was an arena, circular in shape with dozens of narrow pillars holding up the ceiling, a raised boxing ring in F i r s t C o n t a c t

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the middle and wooden seating slanting up around the sides. It was lit by neon strips that dangled on chains, and there were twenty or thirty fans turning slowly, trying to redistribute the hot, sticky air. Thai music was blaring out of speakers, and, bizarrely, there were old television sets facing outward, each one showing a different program.

The ring itself was surrounded by a wire fence that had been built either to keep the players in or the audience out. There must have been about four hundred Thais in the room, chattering excitedly among themselves as they swapped bright yellow slips of paper. Alex had read somewhere that betting was illegal in Thailand, but he recognized at once what was going on here. He had arrived just at the end of a fight. A young man was being dragged feetfirst across the ring, his arms splayed out, his shoulders painting a red streak along the canvas as he was carried away. And the members of the audience who had bet on his opponent were collecting their winnings.

Alex was at the very back of the auditorium. As he arrived, another man—dressed like him in shorts—was led down to the ring, his entire body taut with fear. Seeing him, the audience laughed and applauded. More yellow betting slips changed hands. Someone put a hand on Alex’s shoulder and pushed him down onto a plastic seat.

There was a crack in the floor, and he caught a glimpse of silver, the river water lapping at the concrete posts un-112

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derneath. He was sweating, and the mosquitoes had picked up his scent. He could hear them right inside his ear. His skin crawled as he was bitten again and again.

The new challenger had passed through the audience and reached the wire fence. Someone had placed a laurel of flowers around his neck. He looked as if he was about to be sacrificed. It occurred to Alex that in a sense he was. Two burly Thai men led him through a door in the fence and helped him climb into the ring. They forced him to bow to the audience. Then, in the far corner, the champion appeared.

He wasn’t big—very few people in this country were—but he emanated power and speed. Alex could see every single muscle on his body. They were locked together like metal plates, and he didn’t have a single spare ounce of fat. His hair, very black, was cut short. His eyes were black too. He had a boy’s face, completely smooth, but Alex guessed he was in his mid-twenties. His name—

Sunthorn—was written in white letters on his shorts. He bowed to the audience and danced on his feet, raising his fists to acknowledge their applause.

The other man awaited his fate. The flower garland had been removed, and the Thai men had left the ring.

The music stopped. A bell rang.

At once, Alex understood what he was seeing. He had been expecting the worst, and this was it. Muay Thai, also known as the science of eight limbs, one of the most aggressive and dangerous martial arts in the world. Alex had F i r s t C o n t a c t

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learned karate, but he knew that it was a world apart from muay Thai, which permitted strikes by the fists, elbows, knees, and feet with no fewer than twenty-four targets—

from the top of the head to the rear calf—on your opponent. And this was a dirty, illegal version. Neither of the fighters had hand wraps, shin pads, or abdomen protec-tors. The fight would continue until one of them was carried out unconscious . . . or worse.

Alex watched the first round with a mixture of fasci-nation and horror, knowing that he was going to be next.

The fight had begun with both men weaving around each other, weighing up each other’s weaknesses. Sunthorn had struck out a few times, first with a right-side elbow attack, then twisting his body around in a fast knee strike.

But the challenger was faster than he looked, dodging both blows and even trying a counterkick, slicing his left foot into the air and missing Sunthorn’s neck by inches, a move that got a roar of excitement from the crowd.

But then, at the end of the first round, he made his fatal mistake. He had allowed his guard to drop, as if waiting for the bell. Suddenly Sunthorn lashed out, a rear leg push kick that slammed into the other man’s chest, winding him and almost throwing him off his feet. It was only the chime of the bell a second later that saved him.

He staggered into the corner, where someone forced a bottle of water into his mouth and wiped down his face.

But he was barely conscious. The next round wouldn’t last long.

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In the brief interval, more music blasted out of the speakers. The televisions flickered back on. Yellow slips were exchanged, and Alex noticed people gesticulating wildly, angrily tapping their watches. He was feeling sick.

He realized now that the audience wasn’t betting on who was going to win the fight. With Sunthorn in the ring, there could be no doubt of that. They were betting on how long a fighter could last against him.

The bell rang for the next round, and as expected, it was all over very quickly. The challenger moved forward as if he knew he was walking to his execution. Sunthorn examined him with a cruel smile, then finished the fight in the most vicious way he could: a kick to the stomach followed by a second, much-harder kick straight into the face. A great flower of blood erupted into the ring. The audience howled. The challenger crashed down on his back and lay still. Sunthorn danced around him, waving his fists in triumph. The seconds climbed into the ring to clear away the mess.

And now it was Alex’s turn.

He was suddenly aware of a man leaning over him—

a weird, stretched-out face like a reflection in a fairground mirror. It was Anan Sukit. The snakehead lieutenant spoke to him first in Thai, then in another language, perhaps Dari. Once again, Alex smelled the stale scent of garlic. Sukit paused. Alex stared straight ahead, as if he hadn’t even heard what had just been said. Sukit leaned F i r s t C o n t a c t

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forward. He said something in bad French. Then he repeated it in English.

“You fight, or we kill you.”

Alex had to force himself to pretend that he hadn’t understood. The man couldn’t possibly have known who he was or where he came from. He was simply saying the same thing in as many languages as possible. And finally he used the most effective language of all, grabbing Alex by the hair and pulling him out of his seat and then propelling him down the aisle toward the ring.

As he walked down between the audience, Alex felt himself being examined and evaluated on every side.

Once again the yellow markers were being handed out, and he could imagine the bets being placed. Fifteen seconds . . . twenty seconds . . . it was obvious that this foreign boy wouldn’t last long. His heart was pounding—

he could actually see the movement in his naked chest.

Why had he been chosen for this? Why not Ash? He could only assume that these people got a sick satisfaction out of a change of pace. During the course of the evening, they had seen a number of men beaten up. Now they were going to watch the same thing happen to a teenager.

He passed through the opening in the fence. The two seconds were waiting for him, grinning and offering to help him up into the ring. One of them was carrying a garland of flowers to put around his neck. Alex had already made up his mind about that. As their hands 116

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reached toward him, he struck out at them, drawing laughter and jeers from the crowd. But he wasn’t going to be touched by them, nor was he going to parade in their flowers. He pulled himself into the ring just as two clean-ers climbed out, lowering themselves between the ropes.

They took with them the bloody rags that they had just used to clean the canvas floor.

Sunthorn was waiting in the opposite corner.

It was only now that he was closer that Alex could see the arrogance and the cruelty of the man he was about to face. Sunthorn had probably been training all his life and knew that this next fight was going to be over as soon as it began. But he didn’t care. Presumably he was being paid and would cheerfully maim Alex for life, provided he got his check. Already he was smiling, showing cracked lips and uneven teeth. His nose had been broken at some time, and it had set badly. He might have the body of a world-class athlete, but he had the face of a freak.

A plastic bottle of water was forced between Alex’s lips, and he drank. It was horribly warm in the stadium, and that would only sap his strength. He wondered how Sunthorn had managed to continue for so long. Perhaps he was given some sort of drug. The military music was blasting all around him. The fans were turning. Alex clung to the rope, trying to work out some sort of strategy.

Would it be easier just to take a dive the moment the fight began? If he allowed himself to be knocked out in the opening seconds, at least it would all be over. But there F i r s t C o n t a c t

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was a risk in that too. It would all depend on how hard Sunthorn hit him. He didn’t want to wake up with a broken neck.

The music stopped. The bell rang. The spectators fell silent. It was too late to work out any plan. The first round had begun.

Alex took a couple of steps forward. He could feel the eyes of the crowd boring into him, waiting for him to go down. In front of him, Sunthorn looked completely relaxed. He had taken up the standard stance, with his body weight poised on his front foot—the basic defense in almost every martial art—but he barely looked interested.

It occurred to Alex that if he had any chance at all in this fight, it would be in the opening seconds. Nobody in the arena could possibly know that he was a first-grade dan— with a black belt in karate. The fight was completely unfair. Sunthorn had the advantages of size, weight, and experience. But Alex had the advantage of surprise.

He decided to use it. He continued forward and, at the last second, when he knew he was close enough, he suddenly twisted around and lashed out with all his strength.

He had used the back kick, one of the most powerful blows in karate, and if he had made contact, he would have taken his opponent out then and there. But to his dismay, his foot hit only empty air. Sunthorn had reacted with fantastic speed, springing back and twisting so that the kick missed his abdomen by an inch. The audience 118

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gasped, then chattered with new excitement. Alex tried to follow through with a front jab, but this time Sunthorn was ready. He blocked the attack with his own right arm, then followed through with a counterkick that slammed into Alex’s side, propelling him back against the ropes.

Alex was bruised and winded. Red spots danced in front of his eyes. If Sunthorn hit him a second time, it would be over. Alex rested with the ropes against his shoulder and waited for the end.

It didn’t come. Sunthorn was smiling again, enjoying himself. The foreign boy hadn’t been the easy kill that everyone expected, and he knew he could enjoy himself here. The audience wanted blood, but they wanted drama too. He could play with the boy for a while, weaken him before the final blow that would put him into the hospital. He reached out with his hand, bending his fingers as if to say, “Come on!” The crowd roared its approval. Even the gamblers who had already lost and were tearing up their yellow slips wanted to see more.

Alex drew a deep breath and straightened up. There was a red mark where Sunthorn’s foot had caught him, just above the waist. The man had a sole that could have been made of the toughest leather and leg muscles like steel rods. How could Ash have got him into this? But Alex knew it wasn’t his godfather’s fault. He should have listened to Jack when he was in Sydney. Right now he could have been safely back at school.

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each other, throwing a few feints, but neither of them landing a real punch. Alex tried to keep his distance while he recovered his breath. How long did each round last?

He had seen that there were intervals, and he desperately needed a few seconds on his own, unthreatened: time to think. The sweat was dripping off him. He wiped his eyes, and that was when Sunthorn attacked him, a whirl of jabbing elbows, knees, and fists, any one of which could have knocked Alex down.

In the next thirty seconds, Alex used every defense technique he had ever been taught, but he knew that in truth, he was simply relying on his instincts, dodging and weaving as the arena seemed to spin around him, the audience shouting, the fans turning, and the sluggish heat weighing down on him from all sides. A right hook caught him on the side of the face and his whole head jerked around, a spasm of pain traveling down his neck and spine. Sunthorn followed through with a side knee to the ribs. Alex doubled up, unable to help himself. He hit the canvas just as the bell rang for the end of the first round.

There was applause and cheering. The music blared out. Sunthorn leapt back, grinning and waving his hands, enjoying the fight. Alex felt he had no strength left. He was aware of the two men acting as his seconds, shouting at him, gesticulating for him to return to his corner.

Somehow he forced himself to his feet. His nose was bleeding. He could taste the blood as it trickled into his mouth.

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He wasn’t going to last another round: that much was obvious. All the odds were against him. But he had come to a decision. Sunthorn was older, taller, heavier, and more experienced than he was, and there was only one way Alex was going to beat him.

He was just going to have to cheat.

9

O N C E B I T T E N . . .

O N E O F T H E M E N who had been chosen to look after Alex while he was fighting wiped away the blood with a wet sponge. The other helped him drink. Alex felt the cold water trickle down the sides of his face and over his shoulders. Both the men were grinning at him, muttering words of encouragement as if he could understand a single word they were saying. They had probably done exactly the same during the previous fight—and Alex had seen the result. Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen to him. These people were in for a surprise.

He felt the water bottle being forced one last time between his lips and sucked in as much as he could. A moment later, a bell rang and the bottle was whisked away. The interval music stopped. There were shouts from different parts of the audience. Glancing to one side, Alex saw Anan Sukit striding forward to take a place in the front row. He probably wanted a closer view of the final knockout.

Alex moved forward cautiously, his fists raised, his weight evenly distributed on the balls of his feet. Sunthorn was waiting for him. That was good. The one thing that Alex had most feared was a fast, direct attack. That wouldn’t leave him time for what he had in mind. But 122

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Alex had shown his true colors in the first round. Sunthorn knew that he had trained in at least one martial art, and he was planning his moves carefully. Alex had come close to knocking him out. Sunthorn wasn’t going to give him a second chance.

In the end, he went for a straight clinch . . . a wrestling grip that in muay Thai is also known as the standard tie-up. Suddenly they were face-to-face, their feet almost touching. Sunthorn had locked his hands behind Alex’s head and he was sneering, utterly confident. With his extra height, he had the complete advantage. He could throw Alex off balance or finish him with an explosive strike from his knee. The audience saw that the last seconds of the fight had arrived and roared their approval.

It was exactly what Alex wanted. It was exactly what he had been inviting. Before Sunthorn could make his move, he acted. What nobody knew—not Sunthorn, nor the seconds nor the audience—was that Alex’s mouth was still full of water and had been since the round began.

Now he spat it out, straight into Sunthorn’s face.

Sunthorn reacted instinctively, jerking his head back in surprise and loosening his grip. For a second he was blinded. Alex acted instantly, striking out with a savage uppercut that sent his fist crashing into the man’s jaw. But that wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t get a second chance and had to finish this now. Alex swung around, putting all his strength into a single powerhouse kick, his bare foot landing square in the man’s solar plexus.

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Even Sunthorn’s advanced muscle structure wasn’t up to such a blow. Alex heard the breath explode out of his lips. All the color left his face. For a moment, he stood there, his hands hanging limply beneath him. The crowd had fallen silent—as if in shock. Then Sunthorn collapsed onto his knees and finally slammed facedown, unconscious, onto the floor.

The entire arena erupted with cries of anger and out-rage. The audience had seen what had happened—and they couldn’t believe it. The foreign boy had been brought here to entertain them, but he had cheated them instead.

They had lost money. And their champion—Sunthorn—

had been humiliated.

It was only now, hearing the shouting all around him, that Alex realized that he had put himself in fresh danger.

If he had played his part as expected, he might have been carried out on his back and with a broken nose . . . or worse. But presumably there would have been a consolation prize. He would have been driven home with the false documents that Ash had sent him here to collect. There was no longer any of that. He had offended the snakehead, taken out their prize fighter. Somehow he doubted that they were going to thank him and give him a gold cup.

He stepped over the unconscious body and made as if to climb out of the ring. But he saw at once that he was right. Anan Sukit was back on his feet, his face dark with fury, his eyes ablaze. He had pulled a gun out of an inside 124

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pocket of his suit. Unbelieving, Alex watched as he brought it around and aimed. Sukit was going to shoot him, right there, in front of all these people . . . a punish-ment for the trick that had just been played. And there was nothing Alex could do, nowhere to hide. He watched as the cold eye of the muzzle focused on his chest.

Then all the lights went out.

The darkness was absolute. It seemed to fold in from all sides, like a collapsing box. Sukit had chosen that moment to fire. Alex saw two bursts of orange flame and heard the shots. But he was already moving. The bullets had been aimed at his head, but he had dropped down onto the canvas and was rolling away, searching for the ropes on the other side of the ring. He found them.

Reaching up with one hand, he swung himself through, then down into the ringside area below.

The spectators had reacted to the blackout with silence, but the sound of the two shots had provoked instant panic. They were suddenly blind, and someone had a gun! Alex heard screams, the clatter of seats being pushed to the ground. Someone ran into Alex, then tumbled back. There were more cries of protest. Alex crouched where he was, waiting for his eyes to get used to the dark.

At least that happened quickly. As Alex had approached the arena from the river, he had seen how dilapidated it was—and although there were no windows, the roof and the walls were full of cracks. The moon was O n c e B i t t e n . . .

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still shining and the light was spilling in everywhere . . .

not enough to make out faces, but Alex was in no mood to make new friends. All he wanted was the way out and he could see it, straight in front of him, up a flight of concrete steps.

He got to his feet and ran forward—crashing into the wire fence that surrounded the ring. Where was the opening? Desperately he felt his way along, using his palms against the wire. Somehow he found the gap and stumbled through, forcing himself on toward the sloped seating that climbed steeply up to the door where he’d come in. There was a third shot and a man standing next to him twisted around and fell. Sukit had spotted him, which was hardly surprising. Alex’s bare shoulders and light-colored shorts would make him a target even in the dark. He scrambled forward, fighting his way through the crowd. His skin was slippery, covered in sweat, and at least that made it difficult for anyone to grab hold of him.

A Thai man stepped in front of him, muttering something in his own language. Alex raised a hand, driving the heel straight into the man’s face. The man grunted and fell backward. The knife he had been holding clattered to the floor. So now Alex understood the rules. He was to be captured and killed. That seemed to be the price of winning the fight.

Alex was unarmed. He was half naked. And members of the snakehead were all around him. He knew that only speed and the darkness were on his side. He had to find 126

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his way out of this building in the next few minutes. And that meant retrieving his own clothes. He reached the door—and it was at that moment that the lights flashed back on.

Sukit saw him at once. He pointed with a single, stubby finger and shouted. Alex saw half a dozen young men running toward him—all of them black-haired, dressed in black shirts. They were coming at him from both sides. Sukit fired. The bullet hit a pillar and ricocheted into one of the television sets. The glass shattered and there was a crackle of electricity. Alex saw a tongue of flame and wondered if the whole place might catch fire. That would help him. But the walls were too damp.

The river was everywhere, even in the air he was breathing. He hurled himself through the doorway and down the wooden staircase on the other side, almost losing his balance on the crazy fairground steps. A splinter buried itself in his toe. Alex ignored the pain. He was back in the corridor. Which way had they led him? Left or right? He had less than a second to make a decision and the wrong choice might kill him.

He went right. That way, the corridor sloped upward, and he remembered that coming in, he had gone down.

Behind him, he heard a burst of gunfire . . . not one gun but several. That was strange. He was out of sight now, so who were they firing at? The dull yellow lightbulbs flickered overhead. It seemed that war had broken out in the arena. Was it possible . . . ? Alex wondered if Ash O n c e B i t t e n . . .

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could have somehow followed him here. Certainly there seemed to be someone on his side.

He found the room where he had undressed and ran in, swinging the door shut behind him. His clothes were where he’d left them, and gratefully he pulled them on. At least he looked normal again—and he needed the sneakers if he was going to run over any more wooden floors.

When he was dressed, he went back to the door and slowly opened it. Sweat trickled down the side of his face.

His hair was drenched. But there didn’t seem to be anyone outside.

The end of the corridor and the exit to the jetty were about twenty yards away. But as he made his way toward the open air, Alex heard the roar of an engine, and knew that a boat had just pulled in. He guessed what was going to happen next. Luckily, he was outside one of the other rooms. He threw himself inside just as the main door crashed open and the new arrivals began to make their way down the corridor. There were two of them. They were both carrying old-fashioned, Russian-made RPK-74 light machine guns. The barrels had been modified to make them shorter. As Alex crouched in the shadows, he heard them move toward him. They were searching the changing rooms, one by one. In less than a minute they would be here.

Alex looked around him. This room was almost iden-tical to the one he had left, with no cupboards, nowhere to hide, and a single window, securely barred. But there 128

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was one difference. Part of the floor had rotted away. He could just make out the water, churning underneath.

Could he fit through? There was a crash as the door of the room next to his was thrown open. He heard one of the men call out in Thai. They would be here in the next few seconds. Alex didn’t like to think what he might be letting himself into. The water was a long way down, and the current might suck him beneath the surface. But if he stayed here, he would die for certain. He went over to the hole, took a deep breath, and dropped through it.

He fell into darkness and just had time to put a hand over his nose before he hit the river. The water was warm and sluggish, covered by a layer of filth and rotting vegetation. The stink was almost unendurable. It was like plunging into the oldest, dirtiest bath in the world. As Alex broke back through the surface, he could feel the liquid, like oil, running down his cheeks and over his lips.

Some sort of slime was clinging to his face. He tore it off, forcing himself not to swallow.

He was out of the arena, but he still hadn’t escaped.

He could hear voices above him and in the distance. It was almost impossible to see anything. He was underneath the building, treading water, surrounded by the concrete pillars that held the place up. In the distance, he could just make out the shape of the boat that must have brought the two men with machine guns. It was moored next to the jetty, its engine still running. There was the stamp of footsteps, and he looked up as two flickering O n c e B i t t e n . . .

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shadows passed above his head. They belonged to men running along the veranda outside the arena. Sukit must have given the order to surround the place. His men would be searching it inch by inch.

And then something climbed onto his shoulder.

It was only now that he remembered the movement he had seen when he had arrived: something living in the water and the shadows beneath the building. Alex reached out and grabbed one of the pillars, steadying himself.

Then, very slowly, he turned his head.

It was a river rat, heavy and bloated, at least fifteen inches long, with vicious white teeth and eyes the color of blood. Its tail, curling around behind Alex’s neck, added another ten inches to its length, and it was clinging to his shirt with feverish little claws, scrabbling at the material.

And it wasn’t alone. As Alex froze, in utter horror, two more rats appeared, then a third. Soon the water was swarming with them. Another one climbed onto the side of his face, scratching the skin as it pulled itself on top of his head. Alex wanted to scream—but it was the one thing he couldn’t do. There were armed men standing above him, only a few yards away. If he so much as splashed too loud, it would all be over.

Were the rats going to bite him? That was the terrible thought. Would they try to eat him alive? He felt something nudge his shirt. One of the creatures had dived underwater and was trying to burrow its way inside. He could feel its nose and claws, burrowing against the soft 130

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flesh of his stomach. With a feeling of nausea, he reached down and gently pushed it away. If he was too rough, the rat would bite him, and once the others got a scent of his blood . . .

He stopped himself. Better not even to imagine.

His only hope was to do nothing. Let the rats decide that he was just another bit of pollution that had been dumped in the river. I’m not edible. You wouldn’t like me. He tried to send his thoughts out to the pack. The rat that had climbed onto his head was now nestling in his hair. Alex winced as it pulled out a few strands and began to chew on them, checking out the taste. The first rat, the one that had started this all, was still on his shoulder.

Without moving, Alex looked down and saw a pointed nose twitching right beside his jugular. Behind it, he could make out two black eyes, gleaming with excitement, fas-cinated by the rapid pulsing—in exact time with Alex’s heart. All it had to do was bite through the flesh, find the vein. Alex was certain it was about to strike.

That was when the explosion occurred, a fireball that erupted in the very center of the building. At once, all the rats took flight, leaping off him and disappearing behind the columns. What in the world was going on? Had he perhaps wandered into some war between two rival snakeheads? That didn’t matter now. Alex had to move before the rats came back. He launched himself away from the column and swam through the muck, trying to keep his face out of the water.

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The arena was on fire. He heard voices yelling and saw the flicker of red in the water. A piece of blazing wood tumbled out of nowhere and fell, hissing and spit-ting, into the river. Alex glanced upward. The building had been rickety to begin with. He didn’t want it collapsing now—not when he was underneath. The jetty was straight ahead of him. Even if there were men standing guard, Alex doubted he would be noticed. With all that was going on inside the building, nobody would be looking down into the water. Anyway, he didn’t care anymore.

He’d had enough of this. It was time to go.

He reached the side of the boat, a sheer metal wall rising up into fresh air and freedom. There was a net hanging over the side, and Alex grabbed it gratefully.

Somehow he found the last reserve of strength he needed to climb up. The boat was one of the old river ferries—

with a red roof to show that it crossed continually from one side to the other. There was one man on board—

presumably the driver—a Thai wearing jeans and a jacket but no shirt. He was leaning against the side, watching the fire with a look of astonishment.

The wooden building was crackling loudly. Flames had caught hold of the roof and the back wall. They were leaping up into the night sky. The wood was splintering, pieces of it splashing down. Alex didn’t even try to keep quiet. He hauled himself over the side rail on the other side of the ferry, behind the driver. The man didn’t turn around. Alex ran across the deck, then grabbed him by his 132

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collar and belt. He was lucky. The man weighed very little. Alex heaved him up over the rail and into the river.

Then, still dripping wet, with the water running into his eyes, he went over to the controls and slammed the throttle as far as it would go.

This was going to be his way out of here. Once he was downriver, nobody would be able to find him. The engines roared and the propellers thrashed at the water, turning it white. The boat surged forward. Alex grinned.

But a second later, he was almost thrown off his feet as the boat seemed to slam into a brick wall. Still gripping the steering wheel, he turned around and saw to his dismay that the boat had been moored to one of the columns supporting the arena. The propellers were churning up the water. If the rats were anywhere near, they would have been chopped to pieces. But the boat wasn’t going anywhere. A length of rope, almost as thick as Alex’s arm, stretched between the stern and the column.

And he didn’t have time to untie it. Alex lowered the throttle, afraid that the engines would explode, and the rope sagged. Then somebody shouted something and with a heavy heart he saw Anan Sukit appear on the walkway outside the arena, anger stretching his mouth even farther across his hideous face. He had seen Alex. He still had his gun. Once again he took aim. He was about ten yards away, but he had a clear shot.

Alex did the only thing he could. Once again he O n c e B i t t e n . . .

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slammed down the throttle, and from that moment it seemed to him that everything happened at once.

There were three shots. But Alex hadn’t been hit. And it wasn’t Sukit who had fired. The snakehead lieutenant seemed to throw his own gun into the river as if he no longer had any use for it. Then he followed it in, pitching headfirst into the water. He had been shot from behind, the bullets hitting him between the shoulders. Alex thought he saw a shadowy figure standing in a doorway, but before he could make out who it was, the boat surged forward. And this time it took the column with it, ripping it out from beneath the burning building.

Alex felt himself propelled into the middle of the river, moving incredibly fast. He risked a last look back and saw the arena, consumed by fire, sparks dancing above it.

In the distance, he could hear fire engines. But they weren’t going to be needed. It seemed that he had torn out a vital part of the structure. Even as he watched, the entire building slumped to its knees, as if in surrender, then slid off the bank and into the river. All of it went. The water rushed in through the rotting wood, eager at last to reclaim it. Alex heard screams coming from inside. Another burst of gunfire. And then the Chada Trading Agency had gone as if it had never existed. Only the green sign floated on the surface, surrounded by other pieces of splintered wood and debris. The flames sat briefly on the river before extinguishing themselves. Dozens of dark fig-134

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ures thrashed and shouted in the water, trying to reach dry land.

Alex dragged at the steering wheel and brought the ferry under control. It was incredible, but he really was the only person on board. So which way now? North would take him to familiar territory. He could see the Peninsula Hotel in the far distance. He wondered what he must look like. Bruised, scratched, soaked, in rags—he didn’t think they’d be too happy to let him check in.

And anyway, there was still Ash, presumably waiting for him in Chinatown. Alex steered the ferry toward the next public jetty. It seemed they would have to do without the forged papers. He just hoped Ash wouldn’t mind.

So far, he had to admit, things hadn’t quite gone as planned.

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W A T H O

M A J O R W I N S T O N Y U S E L E C T E D an egg-and-cress sandwich and held it delicately between his gloved fingers.