Scorpia Rising (33 page)
Authors: Anthony Horowitz
Tags: #Europe, #Law & Crime, #Family, #Action & Adventure, #Juvenile Fiction, #Orphans & Foster Homes, #General, #People & Places, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Terrorism, #Fiction, #Orphans, #Spies, #Middle East
And quickly. They’re hurting Alex. They’ve already started.
She remembered the kitchen. It was just a few steps back and she darted in. She threw open the fridge and, with a surge of relief, found what she was looking for: a carton of eggs. Why should she have remembered this now? It was the sight of the microwave that had done it. A failed experiment by a ten-year-old Alex Rider. How she had yelled at him at the time! But now she could use it.
She put one of the eggs into the microwave, swiveled the knob to five minutes and turned it on. Then she hurried back outside and hid behind the boxes. She wondered if it would have been sensible to have armed herself with a kitchen knife, but the idea revolted her, and anyway, she hadn’t seen one around. She waited, counting the seconds. She could imagine the egg turning slowly behind the glass door on its rotating plate. As Alex had discovered, you can’t cook an egg that way. There was a bang as the egg exploded, showering itself all over the inside of the microwave.
As she had hoped, the guard had heard the noise and came running almost immediately. He stopped at the entrance to the kitchen and looked inside, wondering what had happened. That was when Jack tiptoed forward and hit him on the back of the head with the iron bar, using all her strength. The man grunted and fell sideways. Jack made sure he was really unconscious, then turned and ran for the car.
All sorts of thoughts were going through her mind. Should she have taken the guard’s rifle? Could she make her way through the fort, find Alex, and take him out with her? No—that would be too dangerous. Right now, she had the element of surprise, but the moment she tried to start a fight, Razim would outnumber her by a factor of about twenty to one. She hated leaving Alex behind, but she remembered what he had said beside the lake. Better one of them out than neither of them. The town of Siwa couldn’t be too far away. She would get there and come back with reinforcements . . . the local police, the army, whatever. And the moment Razim heard the car leaving, as soon as he had found out what had happened, he would stop whatever he was doing and come after her. Alex would be all right.
She got into the car, closing the door softly behind her so that it made no sound. There was nobody guarding the gate. It was open with the desert and a single track stretching out beyond. This was somehow all too good to be true. Would the car start? She turned the key and the engine purred into life. Nobody shouted at her. Nobody came running.
What about the mines? Razim had said there was a defensive circle all the way around the fort. But she remembered his words. They were turned on only if he believed he was under attack. She would just have to hope for the best. There might be other tire tracks she could follow through the sand.
Hang on, Alex. Help is on its way.
She pushed the car into first gear and moved off.
It took the television screen several seconds to warm up. Alex found himself looking at a black-and-white image that was so fuzzy, it could have been shot at night. At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Julius Grief was leering at him, waiting for him to work it out. Razim was standing to one side, resting the remote control in his palm. Alex thought of closing his eyes, of looking away. Whatever these two freaks were trying to show him, it couldn’t be good. But then he realized what was happening and knew that he was trapped, that it was already too late.
There must have been a camera hidden somewhere high up in Jack’s cell. Jack had her back to him, but he could see her attacking the bar of the window with the knife she had taken, cutting into the brickwork. Alex still didn’t know why they were doing this, what they wanted. But as he watched her, Razim began a soft, mocking commentary.
“So it would seem that your friend Miss Starbright stole a knife from the breakfast table this morning. That was very bad of her. But shall I tell you a little secret, Alex? I had an idea that she might. In fact, I rather wanted her to. And she didn’t disappoint me.”
On the screen, Alex saw the bar fall out of the window.
“And there you are,” Razim continued. “Who would have thought that someone as careful as myself would put your friend in a cell with a metal bar just waiting to come loose? And how foolish of me to dismiss the guards who usually patrol the prison block, leaving her free to wriggle out. What could I have been thinking of?”
Alex was beginning to see where this was going. All around him, the machines pulsed and flickered and the needles began to twitch. Julius Grief was grinning, still clutching the black plastic box that Razim had given him.
“Now look at that! She’s out! She’s free. And despite all the noise she’s made, nobody has heard. I wonder if anyone has left a car for her, to help her get away?”
There were other cameras outside. Alex saw Jack look into the kitchen, then continue down the passageway where a third camera picked up the main courtyard with the waiting Land Rover.
“Just one guard,” Razim crooned. “We didn’t want to make this too easy, did we!”
“You wanted this to happen.” Alex wasn’t sure how he found the words. There was a terrible crushing feeling in his chest, as if he was being scooped hollow.
“Of course. We were using a long-range listening device when you were at the lake this morning. Why else do you think I let the two of you walk alone? It might amuse you to know that the technology was almost exactly the same as that water-bottle gadget you were given by Mr. Smithers. Yes, I know about that too.” Razim moved closer, so close that when he spoke again, Alex could feel his breath on his cheek. “Have you not yet learned? I am a master of manipulation. I manipulated MI6 into sending you here. I manipulated your arrival at the Cairo International College of Arts and Education. And very soon I will be manipulating the British government to do exactly what I demand. From the start, I have been pushing the buttons and pulling the strings. All along, you have been dancing to my tune.”
Razim nodded at the screen. Alex watched Jack come out of her hiding place and knock out the guard.
Julius giggled. “She thinks she’s being so clever!” he exclaimed.
“I must say, I hadn’t expected her to injure my guard,” Razim said. “But as to the rest of it . . . shall we tell Alex?”
“Yes!” Grief’s eyes were dancing. “Tell him!”
“There are two types of pain, Alex. Physical and emotional. Up until now, my experiments have all been physical. But as I have already told you, I need you intact. So it is emotional pain that I am measuring right now and, I have to say, the results are already impressive.”
The needles were jumping and swaying like grass in the wind. Pulses of light were shooting across the screens. Alex’s entire body was tense, his hands straining at the bonds, his eyes staring. He knew what was coming. He had worked it out.
“Please,” he pleaded. “She has nothing to do with this. You don’t have to hurt her.”
Jack had gotten into the car.
“Oh, but I’m afraid I do,” Razim said. “Miss Starbright is now sitting on thirty pounds of high explosive,” Razim said. “Consider the situation, Alex. She has been with you all your life. She has sacrificed so much for your happiness. She is, I am sure you would agree, your best friend.”
“Leave her!” The machines had gone mad. Alex was writhing, trying to break free.
“She is your best friend. And the remote control, the device that will detonate the explosive, is in the hand of someone who hates you, who has been dreaming for more than a year of destroying you. Why don’t you speak to him, Alex? Why don’t you ask him to take pity on you?”
On the screen, Jack had driven out of the compound. The Land Rover was already on the track and picking up speed.
“Please!” Alex felt hot liquid pouring out of the corners of his eyes. He couldn’t help himself. “Don’t . . .”
“I’m sorry?” Julius pushed his face into Alex’s. “I don’t think I heard you.”
“Please, Julius. I’ll do anything you want . . .”
“You’re doing exactly what I want,” Julius said. He was holding the remote control right in front of Alex’s face. Alex saw his thumb press down.
The car blew up. The images weren’t black-and-white after all. The fireball was bright red and orange at the center. The explosion seemed to take in the entire desert and sky. For a moment there was no image at all. Then the cameras picked up the flaming skeleton of the car, lying still, with fire roaring through the shattered windows, and he knew that Jack Starbright was dead.
Jack Starbright, who had looked after him since he was seven. Who had been at his side at the funeral of his uncle and who had tried to protect him once Ian Rider’s secrets had taken over his life. Jack Starbright, who had packed his books for school and taken care of his bullet wounds, always cheerful, always on his side. Jack Starbright, the one person he could confide in, who understood him better than anyone, and who should never have set foot in the terrible, shadowy world that he had inherited. Alex Rider’s grief burst out of him. There was no stopping it. The tears were coursing down his cheeks. He was howling, his whole body contorted, his eyes tightly shut. At the same time, Julius Grief was capering about him, laughing, while Razim examined his apparatus, tapping at a keyboard, comparing different readings.
“It’s extraordinary,” he muttered. “We’ve never had readings like this. Never. It seems that I have completely underestimated the power of emotional pain. I may even have to create a second scale of measurement. This is really quite remarkable.”
Alex slumped forward, his head lolling against his chest. He had blacked out. But still the machines sucked out and translated his emotions . . . the computers, the monitors, the printers, the gauges.
“Wasn’t that great!” Julius exclaimed. “Wasn’t that cool!”
“Go to bed, Julius,” Razim replied. He picked up a printout and held it up to examine the figures. “I have work to do.”
Two guards had arrived. They untied Alex and dragged him away. Julius followed them out of the room. Razim sat where he was, deep in thought.
Out in the desert, the flames flickered in the darkness, throwing jagged red shadows across the sand.
20
HALF AN INCH
THE CONVOY WAS MOVING SWIFTLY through the streets of Cairo. There were nine vehicles in all, starting with two police cars and four outriders on motorbikes. The three cars at the center of the procession were identical: oversized black limousines with tinted windows and a miniature Stars and Stripes fluttering at the corner. The cars had begun their journey a mile away, at the American embassy in Garden City, and from the moment they had swung out of the gates and onto the main road, a whole army of Egyptian policemen had been deployed to keep them moving, with officers holding back the traffic at every corner and at every light. From the air, the convoy might have looked like a living animal, a snake perhaps, burrowing its way through a hundred thousand ants.
The secretary of state was in the first limousine. It might have been safer for her to ride in the middle one with CIA agents in front and behind . . . but this was also the more obvious target. Even though the cars were armor plated, an armor-piercing missile launched from a rooftop was always a possibility. All the roofs had been checked. Armed policemen had taken up strategic positions all the way along the route and would remain there until the night was over. The man known as the Engineer had been seen in Cairo. He might have been killed, but not before he had provided an assassin with a weapon. Nothing could be left to chance.
Sitting in the backseat, next to the window, the secretary of state watched the drab buildings and the stationary traffic as they flashed by. She was a small woman with steely eyes and tied-back silver hair, wearing an off-white silk jacket and skirt, a white shirt, and a jade necklace that had been given to her by the Chinese premier on a recent visit. There was a short, bald-headed man in a dark suit next to her. He looked nervous, but she knew it had nothing to do with the security arrangements. He was her foreign policy adviser and was already thinking about what she was going to say. It was always a dangerous business, making new enemies, and her speech tonight would do just that. Her driver and bodyguard—both CIA men—were in the front. They knew nothing. To them, it was just another business trip.
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