Scorpia Rising (40 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
There were eight rounds in the magazine. Alex fired three of them at Razim, then ran around the side of the parapet, trying to find shadows, somewhere he would be less of a target. He could see one of the towers ahead of him and suddenly there was a guard blocking his path, aiming with his rifle. Alex took out the second grenade and threw it, diving to the floor at the same time. He felt the blast, covering his head with both arms, and when he looked up, the way ahead was clear. He glanced back. The Americans and the Unit 777 men had reached the fort. Alex saw them pouring through the gate, spreading out, and taking up positions across the courtyard. Razim’s guards had almost forgotten him. They knew that a far more dangerous enemy had arrived.
Alex got to his feet. He didn’t know where to go but he certainly didn’t want to stay where he was. He was trapped on the narrow ledge with the edge of the wall on one side and the courtyard on the other. There was shooting all around him. He glimpsed an object flying through the air. It soared through the open door of Razim’s house. There was an explosion and the building was torn apart. Two guards had been standing in front of it. There was a burst of automatic fire and they twisted around, throwing their weapons away from them before collapsing to the ground.
He came to the rope bridge and ran onto it almost without thinking. The other side of the compound looked darker and quieter, and right now all he wanted to do was get out of sight and leave all this to the special forces. He saw three of Razim’s men rush past underneath him. They seemed to have given up the fight. They were running away. One of the Americans appeared behind them, wearing night-vision goggles. He stopped, took aim, and picked them off one at a time. Alex realized that the fight was rapidly becoming a massacre. The invaders were better trained and better equipped. They’d had the advantage of surprise. And with all the defenses down, the fort was nothing more than a killing ground. He felt sickened. He wanted this to be over.
And then a voice, surprisingly close to him, spoke two words.
“Don’t move.”
Alex turned around. It was Razim. Somehow he had caught up with Alex. He was standing with one hand on the side of the bridge, holding on to keep his balance. The other hand held a gun. Alex brought around his own gun. His legs were slightly apart. He could feel himself swaying in the air.
“It’s you. I knew it was you. I knew it the moment I saw you.” For the first time in his life, Razim felt the full force of his emotions as they rushed in, overwhelming him. Fury. Bitterness. Despair. He was out of control, unable to believe what had just occurred, that everything he had planned—so carefully, so brilliantly—had been suddenly taken away from him. “What happened? How did you do it?”
Alex didn’t answer. The fight was raging on in the courtyard below them. Some of Razim’s men were still firing, but it seemed to Alex that the CIA and Triple Seven operatives already had the upper hand. Either way, Razim no longer cared. All the blood seemed to have drained out of him. He was staring at Alex with tears in his eyes.
“I beat you!” Razim whimpered. “I crushed you. I killed your friend. And you still came back. Well, this is where it ends, Alex. I will finish you now. Not a slow death. Alas, we have no time. But every death is the same for the one who dies.”
He raised his gun.
“Alex!”
The shout came from below. Blake Lewinsky had seen what was about to happen and reacted immediately, swinging his machine gun around and firing upward. A volley of bullets cut into the bridge between Alex and Razim. Alex lost his balance as the ground gave way beneath his feet. He flailed out, catching his hand on the side, and cursed as he dropped the gun. He saw Lewinsky taking aim a second time. But then someone opened fire from one of the towers and the American spun around, a bloody stitchwork erupting across his chest. Alex knew he had been killed instantly. But he had done enough.
Razim had fallen back, dazed. His gun had dropped onto the bridge . . . it was right beside him. Alex sprang forward, using all the coiled-up power in his legs. He reached Razim and grabbed hold of him, his hands closing around his throat. The bridge had almost been cut in half, but somehow it was managing to support the two of them, and for a moment they stood there, swaying in midair. There was more gunfire and Alex saw a guard topple out of one of the towers. Razim reached out, trying to retrieve his gun. Alex fell onto him, grabbing his arm, pulling it away.
And then the bridge snapped. Alex felt the gap open up. He could keep hold of Razim and drop with him or he could let go and save himself. At the last microsecond, self-preservation took over. He fell backward, wrapping himself in the severed ropes, twisting them around his arm to tie himself in place. Suddenly his feet were dangling in the air. He felt the strain on his shoulders and wrists. His body weight dragged down the bridge where it had been severed, but the section that was attached to the rooftop held firm, preventing him from hitting the ground.
Razim hadn’t been so fortunate. He had been trying to reach the gun and had left it too late to get a handhold. With a last desperate effort he snatched at the ropes, but they had been whipped away and there was nothing to prevent him falling into the courtyard. If he had hit the ground, he would have broken both his legs, but instead he plunged into the mound of salt that his men had collected from the desert. He went in feetfirst, burying himself up to the waist. His glasses were gone. His gun had landed nearby. He was stuck fast.
All around him, the fighting had stopped. His men were surrendering. The American and Egyptian special forces were taking control.
Razim moved. His eyes widened in fear as he felt himself being sucked into the enormous pile of salt. Alex was dangling above him on his half of the broken bridge. He was out of reach.
“Help me,” Razim said.
Alex didn’t move. If he shifted his weight, the rest of the bridge might collapse.
Razim sank into the salt. It was already up to his arm-pits. And it was as if he knew what was going to happen, that the game was finally over. Somehow, in the last seconds of his life, he managed to force a smile to his face. To Alex it looked like a hideous grimace. “Please . . . ,” he whimpered. “Help me! Throw me a rope!”
The salt climbed higher.
Razim could feel the pressure crushing his stomach and chest. The salt pile was like some hideous creature, drawing him in, inch by inch, swallowing him alive. “You cheated me!” he screeched. “I was better than you. I should have won!”
Alex did nothing. There was nothing he could do.
With the last of his strength, Razim lunged for the gun, stretching his arm across the surface of the salt pile. His fingertips brushed against it. But he wasn’t close enough to pick it up. He gave up the struggle. His arm was dragged beneath the surface. The salt rose over his shoulders. Now only his head and neck were visible, as if he had been decapitated in the fight.
“Don’t move, Alex!” One of the CIA men had reached the bridge and was crawling toward Alex. “We’re coming to get you.”
Alex watched.
Something horrible was happening to Razim. The salt had penetrated his skin, working its way through the pores. It was as if he was being cooked alive inside the huge pile. White foam began to bubble out of his mouth. It trailed out his eyes. Alex was reminded of a garden slug. He had heard it said that slugs died horribly if they were rolled in salt.
“Alex . . .”
It was Razim’s last word. His eyes were completely white. He managed to swallow one last breath, as if it would do him any good, and then he was pulled beneath the surface, disappearing altogether. For a brief moment there was a dent in the surface where he had been, then the salt poured in, filling it.
“We’ve got you!”
Alex felt hands grab hold of him.
The fighting was over. Alex didn’t care. He was completely exhausted.
As Alex was helped back down the stone staircase, he saw Arab guards lined up against the wall with their hands over their heads. There were bodies everywhere. Two Americans and a Triple Seven man had been killed, along with Blake Lewinsky. But most of the casualties were Razim’s people, lying stretched out in the bloodstained sand.
Someone gave Alex a bottle of water. “Are you okay?”
Alex nodded.
“Stay here. We’ve radioed Cairo. It’s over now. There are more people on the way.”
But ten minutes later, Alex had disappeared and at first there was panic among the special forces fighters as they searched for him, wondering what had happened. It was only much later that they found him, outside the fort, on his own, kneeling beside a burned-out car.
24
DEPARTURES
IT WAS TIME TO GO.
Alan Blunt had reached his last day as head of MI6 Special Operations. He had spent the morning packing his personal possessions. It hadn’t taken him very long. In fact, they all fit inside a small shoe box that now sat in the middle of his otherwise empty desk. Of course, what he would really be taking from here would be his memories, and he certainly had enough of those. It had briefly occurred to him that he might write a memoir—it was very much the trend with politicians and departing civil servants. But of course it was out of the question. It was part of the job description that he should take his secrets to the grave. And if he tried to sell them, he might arrive there sooner than he had expected.
He took one last look outside. It was going to be a hot summer. Liverpool Street was unusually bright with the sun flaring off the plate glass windows. There was a pigeon half asleep on the ledge outside. Do birds sleep? Blunt tapped on the glass and it flew away. He had once discussed with Smithers the possibility of using homing pigeons to listen in on foreign ambassadors. Homing pigeons with homing devices around one leg. The Covert Weapons Section had put in a feasibility study, but nothing had come of it. Blunt had seen Smithers a few weeks ago, after his return from Cairo. There had been a formal debriefing. The two of them had not said good-bye.
Blunt went back to his desk and rested a hand on the shoe box. He was tempted to throw it in the garbage. There was nothing inside that he really wanted. Suddenly he just wanted to be out of here. In two days he was leaving for Venice, the first stopping point on a six-week tour of Europe. His wife was coming with him. It would be the longest time the two of them had spent together since the day they were married.
The door opened and Mrs. Jones came in. The new head of Special Operations, just as he had expected. She seemed surprised to see him, but that couldn’t be the case, because she had actually asked for a final meeting before he left. For a moment the two of them looked at each other uneasily over the desk. It occurred to Blunt that they should swing around. Her place was behind it now.
He moved back to the window and sat down in an armchair that looked antique but which was actually modern. Like so many things in this building, it wasn’t what it seemed. Mrs. Jones perched on the edge of the desk. She was wearing black, a smart suit with a silver chain around her neck. She was sucking one of her peppermints. That was bad news. Blunt knew her habits. She sucked peppermints when she had something unpleasant to say, as if to wipe away the taste of the words.
“Congratulations,” Blunt said. He had only been officially told about her new appointment that day. “I wish you every success.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Jones nodded briefly. “Have you made plans?”
“Travel. A little golf perhaps. The BBC have asked me to join the board.”
“I know. I recommended you.” She paused, her hands resting on the surface of the desk behind her. “Before you leave, we have to talk about Alex.”
“Yes. I thought that might be on your mind. How is he?”
“I’m afraid he’s not at all well. What do you expect?”
“It was very unfortunate. The loss of that housekeeper of his.”
“Jack Starbright was more than a housekeeper. She was his closest friend. She was the only adult friend he had. Certainly the only adult he could ever trust.”
“Nobody could have foreseen what would happen.”
“Is that really true?” Mrs. Jones walked behind the desk and sat down. She had taken Blunt’s chair, and the message was clear. She was taking his authority too. “Scorpia set a trap for us and we walked straight into it. Levi Kroll turning up in the River Thames with an iPhone conveniently lodged in his top pocket. A handful of clues leading us to the Cairo International College. They took us for fools and that’s how we behaved. If it hadn’t been for Alex, the secretary of state would be dead and we’d be at war with the Americans. And all this for the Elgin marbles! It almost beggars belief.”
Blunt spread his hands. “I take full responsibility. You don’t need to worry. You can start your new job with a clear conscience.”
“I wish that were the case. But I agreed to use Alex Rider from the very start . . . and I’m talking now about the Stormbreaker affair more than a year ago. I may have had my doubts about bringing a fourteen-year-old boy into our world, but I ignored them. He was too useful to us. And in that respect, I’m as guilty as you.”
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