Scorpia (31 page)

Alex buried his head in his hands. There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask. His mother, his father, Julia Rothman, the bridge… He was shaking and he had to force himself back under
control. At last he was ready.

“I have just two questions,” he said.

“Go on, Alex. We’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“What was my mother’s part in all this? Did she know what he was?”

“Of course she knew he was a spy. He would never have lied to her. They were very close, Alex. I never met her, I’m afraid. We don’t tend to socialize much in this business. She was a nurse before she married him. Did you know that?”

Ian Rider had told Alex that his mother had been a nurse, but he didn’t want to talk about that now. He was simply building himself up, finding the strength to ask the worst question of all.

“So how did my father die?” he asked. “And my mother? Is she still alive? What happened to her?”

Mrs Jones glanced at Alan Blunt and it was he who answered.

“After the affair on Albert Bridge, it was decided that it would be best if your father took a long holiday,” he said. “Your mother went with him. We arranged for a private plane to take them to the South of France. You were meant to go with them, Alex, but at the last minute you developed an ear infection and they had to leave you behind with a nanny. The two of you were going to follow them out when you were better.”

He paused. His eyes, as ever, showed nothing. But there was a little pain in his voice.

“Somehow Julia Rothman discovered that she had been tricked. We don’t know how; we’ll never know. But Scorpia’s a powerful organization: that much should be obvious to you by now. She found out that your father was still alive and that he was flying to France, and arranged for a bomb to be placed in the luggage hold. Your parents died together, Alex. I suppose that’s something of a mercy. And it was all so quick. They wouldn’t have had any idea.”

A plane accident.

That was what Alex had been told all his life. Another lie.

Alex stood up. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. On the one hand he was grateful. His father hadn’t been an evil man. He had been the exact opposite. Everything Julia Rothman had told him and everything he had thought about himself had been wrong. But at the same time, there was an overwhelming sadness, as if he was mourning his parents for the very first time.

“Alex, we’ll get a driver to take you home,” Mrs Jones said. “And we can talk more whenever you’re ready.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alex cried, and his voice cracked. “That’s what I don’t understand. I nearly killed you, but you didn’t tell me the truth! You sent me back to Scorpia – just like my dad – but you never told me that it was Julia Rothman who killed him. Why not?”

Mrs Jones had also got to her feet. “We needed your help to find the dishes. There was no question about it. Everything depended on you. But I didn’t want to manipulate you. I know you think that’s what we always do, but if I’d told you the truth about Julia Rothman and then given you a homing device and sent you in after her, I’d have been using you in the worst possible way. You went in there, Alex, for exactly the same reason that your father went to Albert Bridge, and I wanted you to have that choice. That’s what makes you such a great spy. It isn’t that you were made one or trained to be one. It’s just that in your heart you are one. I suppose it runs in the family.”

“But I had a gun! I was in your flat…”

“I was never in any danger. Quite apart from the glass, you couldn’t even bring yourself to aim at me, Alex. I knew you couldn’t. There was no need to tell you then. And I didn’t want to. The way Mrs Rothman had deceived you was so horrible.” She shrugged. “I wanted to give you the chance to work things out for yourself.”

For a long moment nobody said anything.

Alex turned away. “I need to be on my own,” he mumbled.

“Of course.” Mrs Jones went over to him and touched him lightly on the arm. It was the arm that was the least burnt. “Come back when you’re ready, Alex.”

“Yes – I will.”

Alex moved to the door. He opened it but then seemed to have second thoughts. “Can I ask one final question, Mrs Jones?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“It’s just something I’ve always wondered and I might as well ask you now.” He paused. “What’s your first name?”

Mrs Jones stiffened. Sitting behind his desk, Alan Blunt looked up. Then she relaxed. “It’s Tulip,” she told him. “My parents were keen gardeners.”

Alex nodded. It made sense. He wouldn’t have used that name either.

He walked out, closing the door behind him.

S
corpia never forgot.

Scorpia never forgave.

The sniper had been paid to take revenge and that was what he would do. His own life would be forfeit if he failed.

He knew that in a few minutes, a fourteen-year-old boy would walk out of the building which pretended to be an international bank but was really nothing of the sort. Did it matter to him that his target was a child? He had persuaded himself that it didn’t. It was a terrible thing to kill a human being. But was it so much worse to kill a twenty-seven-year-old man who would never be twenty-eight than a fourteen-year-old boy who would never be fifteen? The sniper had decided that death was death. That didn’t change. Nor did the fifty thousand pounds he would be paid for this hit.

As usual he would aim for the heart. The target area would be a fraction smaller this time but he would not miss. He never missed. It was time to prepare himself, to bring his breathing under control, to enter that state of calm before the kill.

He focused his attention on the gun that he was holding, the self-loading Ruger .22 model K10/22-T. It was a low velocity weapon, less deadly than some he might have chosen. But the gun had two huge advantages. It was light. And it was very compact. By removing just two screws he had been able to separate the barrel and the trigger mechanism from the stock. The stock itself folded in two. He had been able to carry the whole thing across London in an ordinary sports bag without drawing attention to himself. In his line of work, that was the critical thing.

He squared his eye against the Leupold 14×50mm Side Focus scope, adjusting the cross hairs against the door through which the boy would pass. He loved the feel of the gun in his hands, the snug fit, the perfect balance. He had had it customized to suit his needs. The stock was laminated wood with water-resistant adhesive, making it stronger and less likely to warp. The trigger mechanism had been taken apart and polished for a smoother release. The rifle would reload itself as fast as he could fire it – but he would only need a single shot.

The sniper was content. When he fired, for the
blink of an eye, as the bullet began its journey down the barrel, travelling at three hundred and thirty-one metres per second, he and the rifle would be one. The target didn’t matter. Even the payment was almost irrelevant. The act of killing was enough in itself. It was better than anything in the world. In that moment, the sniper was God.

He waited. He was lying on his stomach on the roof of an office block on the other side of the road. He was a little surprised that he had been able to get access. He knew that the building opposite him housed the Special Operations division of MI6 and he had supposed that they would keep a careful watch on all the other offices around. On the other hand, he had picked two locks and dismantled a complicated security system to get here. It hadn’t been easy.

The door opened and the target appeared. If he had wanted to, the sniper could have seen a handsome fourteen-year-old boy with fair hair, one strand hanging down over his eyes. A boy wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans, and a wooden bead necklace (he could see every bead through the scope). Brown eyes and a slightly hard, narrow mouth. The sort of face that would have attracted plenty of girls if the boy had only lived a little longer.

The boy had a name: Alex Rider. But the sniper didn’t think of that. He didn’t even think of Alex as a boy. He was a heart, a pair of lungs, a convoluted
system of veins and arteries. But very soon he would be nothing at all. That was why the sniper was here. To perform a little act of surgery – not with a scalpel but a bullet.

He licked his lips and focused all his attention on his target. He wasn’t holding the gun. The gun was part of him. His finger curled against the trigger. He relaxed, enjoying the moment, preparing to fire.

Alex Rider stepped out onto the street. It was about five o’clock and there were quite a few people around. He was thinking about all the things he had been told in Alan Blunt’s office. They still wouldn’t quite register. It was just too much to take in. His father hadn’t been an assassin; he had been a spy, working for MI6. John Rider and Ian Rider. Both spies. And now Alex Rider. At last they were a family.

And yet…

Mrs Jones had told him that she wanted him to make a choice, but he wasn’t sure that the choice had ever been his. Yes, he had chosen not to belong to Scorpia. But that didn’t mean he had to be a lifelong member of MI6. Alan Blunt would want to use him again: that much was certain. But maybe he would find the strength to refuse. Maybe knowing the truth at last would be enough.

All sorts of confusing thoughts were racing through his mind. But he had already made one
decision. He wanted to be with Jack. He wanted to forget his homework and go out for a film and a blow-out dinner. Nothing healthy. He had said he would be home by six, but perhaps he would call and meet her at the multiplex on the Fulham Road. It was Saturday. He deserved a night out.

He took a step and stopped. Something had hit him in the chest. It was as if he had been punched. He looked left and right but there was nobody close to him. How very strange.

And here was something else. Liverpool Street seemed to be running uphill. He knew it was flat, but now it was definitely slanting. Even the buildings were leaning to one side. He didn’t understand what was happening. The colour was rapidly draining out of the air. As he looked, the world went from colour to black and white, apart from a few splashes here and there: the bright yellow of a café sign, the blue of a car…

… and the red of blood. He looked down and was surprised to see that his whole front was turning crimson. There was an irregular shape spreading rapidly across his sweatshirt. At the same time, he became aware that the sound of the traffic had faded. It was as if something had pulled him out of the world and he was only seeing it from a very long way away. A few pedestrians had stopped and turned to look at him. They were shocked. There was a woman screaming. But she was making no sound at all.

Then the street played a trick on him, tilting so suddenly that it seemed to turn upside down. A crowd had gathered. It was closing in on him and Alex wished it would go away. There must have been thirty or forty people, pointing and gesticulating. Why were they so interested in him? And why couldn’t he move any more? He opened his mouth to ask for help but no words, not even a breath, came out.

Alex was starting to feel scared. There was no pain at all, but something told him that he must have been hurt. He was lying on the pavement, although he didn’t know how he had got there. There was a red circle around him, widening with every second that passed. He tried to call for Mrs Jones. He opened his mouth again and did hear a voice calling, but it was very far away.

And then he saw two people and knew that everything was going to be all right after all. They were watching him with a mixture of sadness and understanding, as if they had always expected this to happen but were still sorry that it had. There was a little colour left in the crowd, but the two people were entirely black and white. The man was very handsome, dressed in military uniform with close-cut hair and a solid, serious face. He looked very much like Alex, although he seemed to be in his early thirties. The woman, standing next to him, was smaller and seemed much more vulnerable. She had long, fair hair and eyes that were
filled with sorrow. He had seen photographs of this woman and he was astonished to find her here. He knew that he was looking at his mother.

He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. He wanted to hold her hand, but his arms would no longer obey him. He wasn’t breathing any more, but he hadn’t noticed.

The man and the woman stepped forward out of the crowd. The man said nothing; he was trying to hide his emotions. But the woman leant down and reached out a hand. Only now did Alex realize that he had been looking for her all his life. She reached out and touched him, her finger finding the exact spot where there was a small hole in his shirt.

No pain. Just a sense of tiredness and resignation.

Alex Rider smiled and closed his eyes.

Anthony Horowitz
is one of the most popular contemporary children’s writers. Both The Power of Five and Alex Rider are number one bestselling series enjoyed by millions of readers worldwide. When Anthony launched the Alex Rider series he created a phenomenon in children’s books, spurring a new trend of junior spy books and inspiring thousands of previously reluctant readers. Hailed as a reading hero, Anthony has also won many major awards, including the Bookseller Association/Nielson Author of the Year Award, the Children’s Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards, and the Red House Children’s Book Award. The first Alex Rider adventure,
Stormbreaker
, was made into a blockbuster movie in 2006.

Anthony’s other titles for Walker Books include the Diamond Brothers mysteries;
Groosham Grange
and its sequel,
Return to Groosham Grange; The Devil and His Boy; Granny; The Switch;
and a collection of horror stories,
More Bloody Horowitz
. Anthony also writes extensively for TV, with programmes including
Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders, Collision
and, most recently,
Injustice
. His latest novel,
The House of Silk
, is a brand new Sherlock Holmes adventure, written with the endorsement of the Conan Doyle estate.