Scorpia (24 page)

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

“Thank you.”

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

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

There was a brief silence as Alex came in.

“Hello, Alex,” she said.

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

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

“No.”

She sighed and turned back to Alex. “I know you think you took a shot at me, but you didn’t. We’ve worked out the angles. The bullet wouldn’t have come close. You were less than two metres away from me and there was no way you could have missed accidentally, so – as far as I can see – something stopped you at the last second. As much as you hate me – and I suppose you’ve every right to – you weren’t able to shoot me in cold blood.”

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

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

“Shall we get down to business?”

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

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

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

“You want me to go back,” Alex said.

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

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

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

“They might not believe it.”

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

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

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

Smithers. Alex almost smiled. It struck him that Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones had already planned this.
They had known they would be sending him back and they had already told Smithers to come up with whatever gadgets he would need. That was typical of MI6. They were always one step ahead. Not just planning the future but controlling it.

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

“You think they’ll come?”

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

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

“How will I get in touch with you?” Alex asked. “I doubt if they’ll let me use a telephone.”

As if in answer to his question, the door opened and Smithers came in. In a strange way Alex was pleased to see him. Smithers was so fat and jolly that it was hard to believe he was part of MI6 at
all. He was wearing a tweed suit that was at least fifty years out of date. With his bald head, black moustache, several chins and his open, smiling face, he could have been anybody’s uncle, the sort who liked to do magic tricks at parties.

And yet, for once, even he was serious. “Alex, my dear boy,” he exclaimed. “This is all a bit of a mess, isn’t it! How are you keeping? Are you in good shape?”

“Hello, Mr Smithers,” Alex said.

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

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

“Well, you always ask the impossible, Mr Blunt, and this time it’s even worse. There are all sorts of gadgets I’d like to give young Alex. I’m always working on new ideas. I’ve just finished work on a pair of Rollerblades. The blades are actually hidden in the wheels and they’ll cut through anything. I’ve got a very nice Rubik’s Cube hand grenade. But as I understand it, these people aren’t going to let him keep anything when he turns up again. If there’s anything remotely suspicious, they’re going to examine it, and then they’ll know he’s working with us.”

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

“I know,” Smithers said. He reached into his pocket. “And I think I may have come up with the answer. It’s the last thing they’d expect … but at the same time, it’s exactly what you’d expect a teenage boy to have.”

He took out a clear plastic bag and inside it Alex saw a small metal and plastic object. He couldn’t help smiling. The last time he had seen one of these had been at the dentist’s.

It was a brace. For his teeth.

“We may have to make a few adjustments, but it should fit snugly into your mouth.” Smithers tapped the bag. “The wire going over your teeth is transparent, so it won’t be noticed. It’s actually a looped radio aerial. The brace will begin transmitting the moment you put it in.” He turned the bag over in his pudgy fingers and pointed to the bottom. “There’s a little switch here,” he continued. “You activate it with your tongue. As soon as you do that, you send out a distress signal and we can come rushing in.”

Mrs Jones nodded. “Well done, Smithers. That’s first-rate.”

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

“No weapons,” Blunt said.

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

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

He left, closing the door behind him.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Mrs Jones said.

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

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

“It’s always possible they won’t take you to them,” Mrs Jones added. “In that event, if you can’t slip away, if you feel yourself to be in any danger, activate it anyway. We’ll send special forces in to pull you out.”

That surprised Alex. She had never shown very much concern for him in the past. It was as if his breaking into her flat had somehow changed things between them. He glanced at her sitting bolt upright, neat and contained, chewing slowly on the peppermint, and guessed that there was something she wasn’t telling him. Well, that made two of them.

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

“Yes.” Alex paused. “Can you really make them believe I escaped?”

Blunt gave a thin, humourless smile. “Oh yes,” he said. “We’ll make them believe it.”

It happened in London and made the six o’clock news.

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

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

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

Two hours later the road was still closed. The police said they were looking for the boy urgently, to interview him. But apart from the fact that he was about fourteen years old and dressed in black, there was no description. They didn’t have a name. The traffic in west London had come to a standstill. It would take days to clear up the damage.

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

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

A man answered. “Yes?”

“This is Alex Rider.”

“Where are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” Alex answered.

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

“What happened?”

“They caught me on the way out. They took me to Liverpool Street and asked me questions. This afternoon they were taking me somewhere else but I managed to get away.” Alex allowed a little panic to enter his voice. He was a teenager; he had just made his first kill; and he was on the run. “Look. You said you’d bring me in once I’d done it. I’m in a phone box. Everyone’s looking for me. I want to see Nile…”

A brief pause.

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

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

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

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