Scorpia Rising (35 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
“Ah—there you are!” Gunter exclaimed. “Did you ever wonder how your name got onto the politics group? I put it there, of course. They do lots of visits like this and there was no way they were going to miss the American secretary of state. Mr. Jordan got tickets for the whole group and there you are, right in the middle of them.
“Any minute now, you’ll stand up and leave the auditorium. You’ll tell the principal that you’re not feeling well and need some fresh air. You’ll slip around the back, passing quite close to this van, as it happens. Then you’ll go back inside through a service door, and that’s when the shot will be fired. And the next time anyone sees you, you’ll be lying dead on the tarmac with a bullet in your head.”
“You want people to think that I killed her.” It was the first time that Alex had volunteered anything, and he sounded almost matter-of-fact, as if he didn’t care what happened.
“Exactly. You’ve finally worked it out. You see, Scorpia has been recording you and filming you for quite a few weeks now. They’ve created a whole file about you—the Horseman file, they call it. What’s in it? Well, there’s a lot of information about your other missions, proving that you’ve worked for MI6 in the past. But there’s also a film of the day Alan Blunt and Mrs. Jones drove to see you in Chelsea, including a recording of the entire conversation. With a little editing, it will prove conclusively that they sent you to Cairo, although it won’t say why. We even intercepted the e-mail booking that shows that MI6 paid for your flight tickets.
“And then there’s the matter of the weapon being used to kill the secretary of state. You’ll remember that I took several pictures of you holding it, and at the same time you’ll have left your DNA and fingerprints all over it. We’ve also got plenty of evidence tying you in with the death of Mr. Habib. I was actually quite surprised that you fell for that old trick, listening in on my telephone call outside the school office. I knew you’d followed me to the House of Gold. And what does everyone think? You see Habib, you get the gun, and the next minute he’s dead and the boat’s been blown up. Who did it? Well, you did, of course.”
Gunter drank some of the Coke, then put the can down.
“So what happens now?” he went on. “The secretary of state has been assassinated just as she was about to start an anti-British speech. The whole of Cairo is in an uproar. At the same time, a British schoolboy is found dead at the scene. His classmates can testify that he was behaving very strangely and left the Assembly Hall minutes before the shot was fired. Rumors begin to swirl around. As always, there are conspiracy theories. People say that British intelligence was involved in the shooting and that the dead teenager was actually working for them. Of course, they deny it. And after a few days or maybe weeks, the press moves on and everything becomes quiet again. It looks as if they’ve gotten away with it.
“And then Scorpia moves in with the Horseman file. They have all the proof they need to show that in this case the conspiracy theories are true. Alex Rider
was
an MI6 agent. He
was
the killer. We have photographic evidence, forensic evidence, films, recordings, intercepts . . . and we’ll pass the whole lot over to the Americans unless you do exactly what we say. The British government will have no choice! The Horseman file would quite simply blow their country apart. It would make them the enemy of the entire world. Can you imagine how nervous they will be, Alex? They will be at the complete mercy of Scorpia. What is it that we want? A billion dollars? A trillion? But—no! All we ask for is an announcement that the Elgin marbles will be returned—immediately—to their correct home. Maybe it’ll upset a few art historians and some pompous professors, but it’s really a tiny price to pay.
was
an MI6 agent. He
was
the killer. We have photographic evidence, forensic evidence, films, recordings, intercepts . . . and we’ll pass the whole lot over to the Americans unless you do exactly what we say. The British government will have no choice! The Horseman file would quite simply blow their country apart. It would make them the enemy of the entire world. Can you imagine how nervous they will be, Alex? They will be at the complete mercy of Scorpia. What is it that we want? A billion dollars? A trillion? But—no! All we ask for is an announcement that the Elgin marbles will be returned—immediately—to their correct home. Maybe it’ll upset a few art historians and some pompous professors, but it’s really a tiny price to pay.
“And here’s a funny thing. As it happens, the secretary of state has Greek parentage. Her mother was born in Athens. So the British government can announce that they’re sending back the marbles in her honor! Everyone will be happy. The prime minister will even be congratulated on his consideration. He will see at once that he has no choice but to agree.
“Everyone wins. I get paid. Scorpia gets paid. The Greeks get their marbles. MI6 gets the file. The only losers, I suppose, are the secretary of state and you. She’ll be killed in . . .” Another turn of the watch. “In seven minutes’ time. And you die the moment Julius Grief gets back to this van. He’s asked to watch when I pull the trigger, by the way. I don’t think he likes you very much.”
Gunter finished speaking and looked back at the television screen. All the cameras were now fixed on the stage inside the Assembly Hall, and even as he watched, a tall, dark-haired Egyptian man appeared and began to address the crowd in Arabic. The secretary of state was about to walk on. Her speech was about to begin. He turned up the volume but kept it low.
“Julius should have left by now,” Gunter said. “You have very little time left, Alex. In a way, I feel sorry for you. But if there’s a moral in all this, it’s that kids shouldn’t get mixed up in adult affairs. You should have known that. Now it’s too late.”
“I want something,” Alex said. His voice was neutral.
“Oh yes?” Gunter was surprised that Alex had asked for anything at all.
“I want a cigarette.”
“A cigarette?”
“Yes.”
“When did you start smoking?”
“A year ago.”
Gunter shook his head. “It’s a bad habit. You’re too young to smoke.”
“It’s not going to kill me now. What difference does it make?”
“You have a point.” Gunter shrugged. “But I’m afraid I don’t smoke. I don’t have any cigarettes.”
“There’s a pack over there.” Alex nodded at the work surface near the door, just behind Gunter. Sure enough, there was a pack of Black Devils—the cigarettes smoked by Razim—lying on the surface.
Gunter glanced over his shoulder. The cigarette pack was within easy reach. “I hope you’re not trying to trick me,” he said. “You think you can distract my attention? Let me assure you that I could shoot you dead before you even realized I’d picked up the gun.”
“I don’t care what you do to me,” Alex said. “I just want a cigarette.”
“All right. If you want the truth, Alex, I think you’re a little pathetic. But if that really is your last wish . . .”
Without taking his eyes off Alex, Gunter reached back for the cigarette pack, opened it, and slid his hand inside to take out a cigarette.
And screamed.
In half a second, all his poise and self-control had gone. The gun was forgotten. Even Alex didn’t matter anymore. All he was aware of was the pain blasting its way through the palm of his hand and up his arm—all the way to his shoulder. The pain was crippling. It was tearing at his heart.
And from out of the cigarette pack crawled a mature, angry, fat-tailed scorpion. The sting of such a creature is not always lethal, but this one had been a prisoner inside the cigarette pack for almost twelve hours, and in that time it had been filling its glandular sacs with poison, waiting for the moment when it could attack. As soon as Gunter had opened the pack, it had struck, its barb—or
hypodermic aculeus
—injecting a dose of fast-acting neurotoxins into the palm of his hand. At the same instant, Alex had come back to life, springing out of the chair and snatching up the gun in one movement. He didn’t have time to load it. Instead, he swung it with all his strength into Gunter’s face. He heard the man’s nose break. With blood spouting, still clutching his injured hand, Gunter fell back, lost his balance, and fell. His head hit the edge of the countertop with a sickening thud. His neck snapped forward. He lay still.
hypodermic aculeus
—injecting a dose of fast-acting neurotoxins into the palm of his hand. At the same instant, Alex had come back to life, springing out of the chair and snatching up the gun in one movement. He didn’t have time to load it. Instead, he swung it with all his strength into Gunter’s face. He heard the man’s nose break. With blood spouting, still clutching his injured hand, Gunter fell back, lost his balance, and fell. His head hit the edge of the countertop with a sickening thud. His neck snapped forward. He lay still.
Alex stood where he was, breathing heavily.
He had noticed the nest of scorpions outside his cell the day he had arrived at Siwa Oasis. With no gadgets and no weapons, he had begun to formulate a plan long before Jack Starbright had tried to escape. He had stolen the cigarette pack at breakfast. He had concealed it in his cell. And he had been awake all night—the longest night of his life—hoping that a scorpion would reappear. The adult had climbed in through the windows a few hours after sunrise. Alex had managed to trap it in the cigarette pack and had been keeping it in his pocket ever since.
He had slipped the cigarette pack into position as he entered the OBU, pretending to stumble. It had been there ever since.
Alex’s face had barely changed. His eyes were still far away. But now there was a pinprick of something there, deep inside them. Had Gunter been conscious or even alive, he might have described it as a spark of fury. Alex examined the gun. It was quite heavy in his hand, but he could see that it would be fairly simple to use, with an external hammer, no safety catch, and a detachable box magazine in the handle holding eight bullets. It was fully loaded. Alex slipped it into the waistband of his trousers. He was going to need it.
There was a round of applause and Alex glanced at the screens. The American secretary of state was walking onto the stage. The audience had risen to its feet. Alex took one last look at Gunter. The Scorpia man didn’t seem to be breathing. His hand looked like a rubber glove that someone had pumped full of air. It reminded Alex that there was an angry scorpion somewhere inside the Outside Broadcast Unit. It was time to go.
He found the lock and slid the door open to find himself facing the Assembly Hall just a few yards in front of him. It was very dark but the rain hadn’t started yet. A blast of warm, heavy air rubbed against his face, taking over from the air-conditioning. He could see the other OBUs. Some of them had kept their doors open, allowing the gray-and-white flicker of their television monitors to escape into the night. There were no policemen or guards in sight, and he guessed that they would either be around the main entrance or else inside the Assembly Hall, concentrating on the audience and the stage.
But then a single figure flitted in front of him, keeping close to the main wall, hurrying around the back of the building. He was dressed in dark blue trousers and a light blue shirt and he was breathing heavily. Somehow he must have been delayed. Perhaps one of the CIA men had tried to stop him from leaving the building. He wasn’t carrying any weapon, of course. He would have been searched on the way in and possibly on the way out too.
It was Julius Grief.
Alex slid the door of the OBU shut behind him and set off in pursuit.
21
CAIRO STORM
“GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. It’s a real pleasure to find myself back in Egypt, a country that has always been a good friend to democracy. It’s certainly warm this evening. But it’s nothing compared with the warmth of your welcome.”
An image of the American secretary of state was being projected onto a vast television monitor at the back of the stage, her head and shoulders looming over the actual woman herself. She was standing between the two flags with the lectern in front of her. Her opening words had been projected onto a glass screen that stood just on the edge of her vision, and they could be read only from her side. In front of her, two thousand people greeted her opening remarks with a ripple of applause that seemed to spread out and grow, rising all the way to the dome.
The front rows and special galleries to the left and to the right were taken up by Egyptian politicians, sheikhs, diplomats, and businesspeople, dressed in smart suits, bright white dishdashas, sparkling evening dresses, and jewelry. In the far distance, three tiers up, the spectators at the very back were little more than gray smudges in the shadows. Security men stood at every door and at intervals along the aisles, watching not the secretary of state but the people watching her. All the exits had been closed moments before she had begun to speak. Nobody would be allowed in until she had finished. And—unless there was an emergency—nobody would be allowed to leave.
The lights in the halls had been dimmed, but there were spotlights focused on the stage, trapping the speaker in a perfect white circle. The light and sound levels were being controlled by two technicians in a sealed-off cabin with a plate glass window constructed underneath the first circle. But most of the machinery, including the projection equipment for the plasma TV, was actually concealed much higher up. A winding staircase led all the way from the ground floor, following the curve of the dome. At the top there was a low, arched doorway leading into an area packed with fuses, circuit boards, and temperature gauges. This second control room had been built into the ceiling at the very center of the dome and slightly resembled the cockpit of a spaceship: completely circular with narrow slits that would have given someone a bird’s-eye view of the stage—if they had been allowed inside.
The room had been quickly identified as a grade-one security risk, an ideal position for a would-be assassin. It had been thoroughly searched—not once but several times. The door was locked from outside and a CIA man had been in position, sitting there on his own, since nine o’clock that morning. He was there now, trying to listen to the speech, which sounded muffled and distant. He was bored. When Joe Byrne had named the protection details and started handing out jobs, he had certainly drawn the short straw.
The CIA agent couldn’t have known that the weapon that was going to be used to kill the secretary of state, the L96A1 Arctic Warfare sniper rifle, was already in place and that Julius Grief, who had been trained as a sharp-shooter since the age of nine, was already on his way to collect it. In a few minutes’ time, he would take his place behind the door and the moment the secretary of state uttered the word
Britain
for the first time, he would fire, sending a .300 Winchester Magnum bullet traveling at 850 meters per second into her head.
Britain
for the first time, he would fire, sending a .300 Winchester Magnum bullet traveling at 850 meters per second into her head.
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