Snakehead (16 page)

Alex assumed they were going to unlock the container, but what happened next took him completely by surprise. One of the men lifted something that looked like a television remote control and pressed a button. Immediately one side of the container opened electronically, the sections separating like elevator doors. There was a click, and then the floor of the container slid forward, bringing the contents out where they could be examined. What a box of tricks! The security pin was still in place and wouldn't need to be touched.

Alex knew at once what he was looking at. There could be no mistaking it. Royal Blue. That was the name that Mrs. Jones had given it. She had told him it was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon on the planet. Alex's first impression was that the bomb was strangely old-fashioned, like something out of World War II. In the great emptiness of the hold, it looked small, but he guessed that it was about the size of a family car. He wondered what it was doing out here—and where were they taking it? Australia? Was the white-haired man planning to set it off there?

Right now, it was surrounded by a bank of machinery, and as soon as the container had clicked into position, two of the men set to work connecting it all up. There was some sort of scanner—it looked like an office photocopier—and a laptop computer. A third man was explaining something. He was black, with a pockmarked face, very white teeth, and cheap plastic glasses that were too heavy for his face. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with half a dozen pens in the breast pocket. Alex edged forward to hear what he was saying.

“…We had to modify the bomb to change the method of detonation.” The man had an accent that Alex couldn't quite place—French, perhaps. “It would normally explode one yard above the ground. But this one will be required to explode one-half mile below it. So we have made the necessary adaptations…”

“A radio signal?” the white-haired man asked.

“Yes, sir.” The tall man indicated a piece of equipment. “This is how you communicate with the bomb. The timing is crucial. I estimate that Royal Blue will only be able to function at that depth for around twenty minutes. You must send the signal during that time.”

“I want to be the one who sends the signal,” the white-haired man said. He spoke perfect English, like an old-fashioned news broadcaster.

“Of course, sir. I received your e-mail from London. And as you can see, I've arranged a fairly simple device. It allows you to scan your fingerprints into the system. From that moment on, you will have complete control.”

“That's absolutely first rate. Thank you, Mr. Varga.”

The white-haired man pulled off one of his gloves, revealing a hand that was small and withered. It could have belonged to someone who was dead. Alex watched as he placed it against the scanner. Mr. Varga pressed a few buttons on the laptop. A green bar of light appeared underneath the hand, traveling across the palm. It only took a couple of seconds, and then it was over.

One of the other men was overweight, with thinning ginger hair. He was about fifty years old, dressed in a white shirt and pants with blue and gold bands on his shoulders. The white-haired man now turned to him.

“You can put Royal Blue back into the container, Captain De Wynter,” he said. “It'll be unloaded the moment we arrive at East Arm.”

“Yes, Major.”

“And one other thing…”

But the white-haired man—the major—never finished the sentence. There was a scream from a siren, so loud that Alex was almost knocked off the platform and had to cover his ears to protect himself from the noise. It was an alarm signal. The fourth man, who had so far said nothing, swung around, revealing a machine gun—a lightweight Belgian M249—hanging at his waist. Captain De Wynter pulled out a cell phone and speed dialed.

The siren stopped. The captain listened for a few seconds, then reported what he had heard, speaking in a low voice. Half deafened, Alex couldn't hear a word he said.

The white-haired man shook his head angrily. “Who is he? Where did he come from?”

“They are holding him on the deck,” De Wynter replied.

“I want to see him for myself,” the white-haired man exclaimed. “Come with me!”

The four of them left together, making for a door set in the side of the hold. A moment later they were gone, and to his astonishment, Alex found himself alone with the bomb. It seemed to be a heaven-sent opportunity, and without even hesitating, he climbed down the staircase and went over to the container. And there it was right in front of him. MI6 was searching for Royal Blue all over Thailand, but he had found it in the middle of the South China Sea. He had found Winston Yu at the same time—for that was surely who the white-haired man must be. After all, he had just heard the captain refer to him as “Major.” But why were they both here? What did the major want with the bomb? Alex wished he had heard more.

He ran his eyes over it. Close up, it struck him as one of the ugliest things he had ever seen—blunt and heavy, built only to kill and destroy. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he could detonate it. That would put an end to Yu's plans, whatever they were. But Alex had no wish to die, and anyway, there were at least twenty refugees, some of them children, concealed in the ship. They'd be killed too.

Perhaps he could disarm it. But there was no point. Yu or the man called Varga would soon see what he had done and simply reverse it. Could he use another of the exploding coins? No—they might be able to penetrate the thick shell of Royal Blue, but what then? And anything he damaged, Yu could easily replace.

He had to do something. The four men might be back at any time. He glanced at the laptop, and that was when he saw the instruction, printed in capital letters on the screen.

 
PLACE HAND ON SCREEN

The laptop was connected to the scanner. Alex could see the outline of a human hand, positioned exactly to read the user's fingertips. Acting on impulse, he placed his own hand on the glass surface. There was a click, and the green light rolled underneath his palm. On the laptop, the readout changed.

 
FINGERPRINT PROFILE ACCEPTED

Add further authorization Y/N?

Delete previous authorization Y/N?

Alex reached out and pressed Y for the first instruction and N for the second. There was no point in advertising that he had been here. The screen returned to its first message.

 
PLACE HAND ON SCREEN

So that was interesting. He had given himself the power to override the system if he ever happened to come across it again—and with a bit of luck, neither Major Yu nor Mr. Varga would notice.

There was nothing more to be done here. Alex made his way back to the staircase and went up, intending to find somewhere to hide. He would wait until he got to Darwin. Then he would contact Mrs. Jones and tell her about her precious bomb. If she asked him nicely, he could even defuse it for her.

He reached the deck. Major Yu had arrived there ahead of him—Alex could hear his voice although he couldn't make out any of the words. Quickly he climbed a ladder that led to a narrow passageway dividing two of the container towers. There was no chance of anyone spotting him here. Feeling bolder, he made his way to the end and found himself looking down on the foredeck, where a single mast rose up amid a tangle of winches and cables.

What he saw there chilled him.

He had thought the siren was a useful diversion, perhaps announcing some problem in the engine room. It had gotten Major Yu and his men out of the way at exactly the right moment. But now he realized that it hadn't been good news at all. In fact, it could hardly be worse.

The old man from the container—Salem—had decided to follow Alex out. He must have squeezed through the trapdoor and found his way onto the deck. But there his luck had run out. A couple of the crewmen had discovered him. They were holding him now with his hands pinned behind his back while Major Yu questioned him. Captain De Wynter and Mr. Varga were watching. Salem was having difficulty making himself understood. He had been beaten. One of his eyes was swollen half shut, and there was blood trickling from a cut on his cheek.

He finished speaking, a gabble of words that were swept away by the wind. It wasn't cold out on the deck, but Alex found himself shivering. Major Yu still had his back to him. Alex watched as he carefully removed one of his gloves and reached into his jacket pocket. He took out a small pistol. Without hesitating, without even pausing to aim, he shot the old man between the eyes. The single report of the bullet was like a crack of wood. Salem died on his feet, still held up by the two crewmen. Yu nodded and the men tilted him backward, tipping his lifeless body over the rails. Alex saw it fall into the water and disappear.

Then Major Yu spoke again, and somehow his words carried up as if amplified.

“There is a child on this ship,” he exclaimed. “He has escaped from the container. I don't know how. He must be found immediately and killed. Bring the dead body to me.”

T
HE CAPTAIN OF THE
Liberian Star
was not normally a nervous man, but right now he was sweating. Standing in front of the stateroom door, he tried to compose himself, mopping his forehead and tucking his cap under his arm. He was aware that he might have only a few minutes to live.

Hermann de Wynter was Dutch, unmarried, out of shape, and saving money for a retirement somewhere in the sun. He had been working for the snakehead for eleven years, transporting containers all over the world. Never once had he asked what was inside. He knew that in this game, the wrong question could prove fatal. So could failure. And now it was his duty to tell Major Yu that he had failed.

He took a breath and knocked on the door of the stateroom that Yu occupied, on the same level as the main deck.

“Come!”

The single word sounded cheerful enough, but De Wynter had been present the day before. Yu had smiled as he killed the Afghan refugee.

He opened the door and went in. The room was well appointed, with a thick carpet, modern English furniture, and soft lighting. Yu was sitting at a table, drinking a cup of tea. There was also a plate of shortbread, which De Wynter knew was organic and came from Highgrove, the estate belonging to the Prince of Wales.

“Good morning, Captain.” Yu motioned for him to come in. “What news do you have for me?”

De Wynter had to force the words into his mouth. “I am very sorry to have to report, Major Yu, that we have been unable to find the boy.”

Yu looked surprised. “You've been working for eighteen hours.”

“Yes, sir. None of the crew has slept. We spent the whole night searching the ship from top to bottom. Frankly, it's incredible that we have found no trace of him. We've used motion detectors and sonic intensifiers. Nothing! Some of the men think the child must have slipped overboard. Of course, we still haven't given up…”

His voice trailed off. There was nothing more to say, and he knew that making too many excuses would annoy Major Yu all the more. De Wynter stood there, waiting for whatever might come. He had once seen Yu shoot a man simply for being late with his tea. He just hoped his own end would be as quick.

But to his amazement, Major Yu smiled pleasantly. “The boy certainly is trouble,” he admitted. “Frankly, I'm not at all surprised that he's managed to give you the slip. He's quite a character.”

De Wynter blinked. “You know him?” he asked.

“Oh yes. Our paths have already crossed once before.”

“But I thought…” De Wynter frowned. “He's just a refugee! A street urchin out of Afghanistan.”

“Not at all, Captain. That's what he'd like us to believe. But the truth is that he's quite unique. His name is Alex Rider. He works for British intelligence. He's what you might call a teenage spy.”

De Wynter sat down. This was in itself remarkable. After all, Major Yu hadn't offered him a seat.

“Forgive me, sir,” he began. “But are you saying that the British managed to get a spy on board? A child…?”

“Exactly.”

“And you knew?”

“I know everything, Captain De Wynter.”

“But…why?” De Wynter had completely forgotten his earlier fear. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that he had never spoken to Major Yu so familiarly or for such a length of time.

“It amused me,” Yu replied. “This boy is rather full of himself. He travels to Bangkok disguised as a refugee. His mission is to infiltrate my snakehead. But all along, I know who he is and I am simply choosing the moment when I will bring his young life to a fitting end. I have friends who would like me to do it sooner rather than later. But the time is my choice.”

Yu poured himself some more tea. He picked up a shortbread cookie, holding it between his gloved fingers, and dipped it into the cup.

“My intention was to allow him to travel as far as Darwin,” he continued. “As it happens, I have a use for him, and he might as well travel with the other refugees as anywhere else. Unfortunately, the old man was unable to tell me how he managed to break out of the container, and it's certainly an unwelcome surprise. But I am still confident that you will be able to locate him eventually. After all, we have plenty of time.”

The Dutchman felt his mouth go dry again. “I'm afraid not, sir,” he muttered. “In fact, it may already be too late.”

“Why is that?” Major Yu's eyebrows rose behind the round wire frames.

“Look out of the window, sir. We've arrived at Darwin. They've already sent out a couple of tugs to tow us in.”

“Surely we can delay docking for a few more hours.”

“No, sir. If we do that, we could be stuck here for a week.” De Wynter ran a hand over his jaw. “The Australian ports run like clockwork,” he explained. “Everything has to be very precise. We have an allocated time for arrival, and it's a small window. If we miss it, another ship will take our place.”

Yu considered. Something very close to anxiety appeared in his shrunken schoolboy face. This was exactly what Zeljan Kurst had warned him about in London. Like it or not, Alex Rider had taken on Scorpia once before and beaten them. Yu had thought it impossible that such a thing could happen a second time. And yet the boy did seem to have the luck of the devil. How had he managed to get out of the container? It was a shame nobody had been able to understand the old man before he had died.

“Even if we dock, the boy cannot possibly leave the ship,” De Wynter said. “There is only one exit—the main gangway, and that will be guarded at all times. He can jump into the sea, but I will have men on lookout. We can cover every angle with rifles. We'll pick him off in the water. A single shot. No one will hear anything. We'll only be in Darwin for a few hours. Our next port is Rio de Janeiro. We'll have three weeks to flush him out.”

Major Yu nodded slowly. Even as De Wynter had been speaking, he had made up his mind. In truth, he had little choice. Royal Blue had to be unloaded immediately in order to continue its journey. He couldn't wait. On the other hand, there was something that Alex Rider didn't know. Whatever happened, all the cards were in Yu's hand.

“Very well, Captain,” he muttered. “We'll tie up at Darwin. But if the boy does slip through your fingers a second time, I suggest you kill yourself.” He snapped a cookie in half. “It will spare me the trouble, and it will, I assure you, cause you a great deal less pain.”

 

Alex Rider had heard everything that Major Yu had said.

The man who sat on the executive board of Scorpia and who headed the most powerful snakehead in south-east Asia would have been horrified to know that Alex was hiding in perhaps the most obvious place in the world. Under his own bed.

Alex had known what he was up against. The moment he had seen the refugee killed on the deck and had heard Yu give the order for the crew to hunt him down, he had realized he needed to find somewhere on the ship that nobody would even dream of looking. It was true there were hundreds of hiding places—ventilation shafts, the crawl spaces between the containers, cabins, cable housings, and storage units. But none of these would be good enough, not with the entire crew searching for him non-stop throughout the night.

No—it had to be somewhere completely unthinkable…and the idea had come to him almost at once. Where was the last place he would go? It had to be the captain's cabin or better still, Major Yu's own quarters on board the
Liberian Star.
The crew almost certainly weren't allowed in either. It wouldn't even occur to them to look inside.

He'd only been given a few minutes' start. As the crew members organized themselves and the various listening devices were handed out, Alex was racing. The layout of the ship was fairly easy to understand. He had seen much of it already. The engine rooms and the crew's cabins were somewhere down below. Yu, the captain, and the senior officers—anyone important—would surely be housed above sea level, somewhere in the central block.

Breathless, imagining the crewmen fanning out behind him, Alex stumbled on a door that led to the spotlessly clean, brightly lit corridor that he had explored the day before. He was on the right track. The first door he came to opened into a conference room, full of charts and computers. Next came a living space with a bar and TV. He heard the clatter of saucepans and ducked back as a man wearing a chef's hat suddenly crossed the corridor and disappeared into a room opposite. A moment later, he emerged again and went back the way he had come, carrying a box of canned food.

Alex hurried forward. The chef had clearly entered some sort of larder, and Alex wasted a few seconds pulling out a bottle of water for himself. He was going to need it. Continuing down the corridor, he passed a laundry, a game room, and a miniature hospital. He came to an elevator and was tempted to take it. According to the display, there were six floors above him. But he didn't have time and dreaded waiting for it to arrive, only to find it packed with Yu's men.

He came upon Yu's stateroom at the very end of the corridor. It wasn't locked—but there wasn't a man on board the
Liberian Star
who would have dared enter even if the door had been open and Yu miles away. Alex slipped inside. He saw a table with a number of files and documents spread across the surface and wished he had time to examine them. What secrets they might reveal! But he didn't dare touch anything. Moving even one page a fraction of an inch might give him away.

He looked around him, taking in the pictures on the walls—scenes of the English countryside with, in one image, a traditional hunt setting out across what might be Salisbury Plain. A sophisticated stereo system and a plasma TV. A leather sofa. This was where Yu worked and relaxed when he was on board.

The bedroom was next door. Here was another bizarre touch. Yu slept in an antique four-poster bed. But Alex knew at once that it was perfect for his needs. There was a silk valance that trailed down to the floor, and lifting it up, Alex saw a space half a yard high that would conceal him perfectly. God—it reminded him of being six years old again, playing hide-and-seek with Jack Starbright on Christmas Eve. But this wasn't the same. This time he was on a container ship, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, surrounded by people who were determined to kill him.

Same game. Different rules.

Alex took a swig of the water he had stolen and slid underneath, easing the silk valance back into shape. Very little light bled through underneath. Alex prepared himself, trying to find a comfortable position. He knew that he wouldn't be able to move a muscle once Yu entered the room.

He was suddenly struck by the craziness of his plan. Could he really stay here all night? How stupid would he look if Yu found him? He was briefly tempted to crawl out and find somewhere else. But it was already too late. The search would have begun, and he couldn't risk starting again.

In fact, it was several hours before Yu came in. Alex heard the outer door open and close again. Footsteps. Then music. Yu had turned on the stereo system. His taste was classical…Elgar's
Pomp and Circumstance,
the music they played at the Albert Hall in London every summer. He listened to the piece while he ate his dinner. Alex heard one of the stewards deliver it to him and caught a faint scent of roast meat. The smell made him hungry. He sipped a little more water, glumly reflecting that it was all he had to last the night.

Later Yu turned on the television. Somehow he had managed to tune in to the BBC, and Alex heard the late-night news.

“Pop singer Rob Goldman was in Australia this week, just five days before the conference taking place on Reef Island, which has come to be known as Reef Encounter and which has been timed to take place at exactly the same time as the G8 summit in Rome.

“Goldman played to a sold-out audience at the Sydney Opera House and told an enthusiastic crowd that peace and an end to world poverty were possible—but that they would have to be achieved by people, not politicians.

“Speaking from 10 Downing Street, the British prime minister said that he wished Sir Rob every success but insisted that the real work would be done in Rome. It's a view that not many people seem to share…”

Much later, Major Yu went to bed. Alex barely breathed as he came into the bedroom. Lying in the semi-darkness with muscles that were already aching, he heard the major undress and wash in the adjoining bathroom. And then came the inevitable moment: the creak of wood and shifting metal springs as Yu climbed into bed, just inches above the boy he was so determined to find. Fortunately, he didn't read before he slept. Alex heard the click of the light switch, and the last glimmer of light was extinguished. Then everything was silent.

For Alex, the night was yet another long, dreary ordeal. He was fairly sure that Major Yu was asleep, but he couldn't be certain, and he didn't dare sleep himself in case the sound of his breathing or an accidental movement gave him away. All he could do was wait, listening to the hum of the engines and feeling the pitch of the ship as they drew ever closer to Australia. At least that was one consolation. Every second that he remained undiscovered brought him a little closer to safety.

But how was he to get off the
Liberian Star?
One exit—guarded. The decks watched. Alex didn't like the idea of diving overboard and swimming…even assuming he could manage it without being crushed or drowned. And there would be a dozen or more men waiting to take a potshot at him. Well, he would just have to worry about that when the time came.

The ship plowed on through the darkness. The minutes dragged slowly past. At last a glimmer of light crept across the floor, pushing away the shadows of the night.

Yu woke up, washed, dressed, and took his breakfast in the stateroom. That was the worst part for Alex. He had barely moved for ten hours, and all his bones were aching. Still Yu refused to leave. He was working at his desk. Alex heard the rustle of pages turning and, briefly, the rattle of computer keys. And then the steward brought a mid-morning snack, and a short while later De Wynter arrived with the news of his failure.