Snakehead (19 page)

“It turned out that when I was just six years old, she had managed to track down one of the main snakeheads operating in Hong Kong and had volunteered her services as a paid assassin. I know it sounds remarkable, but I suppose that being abandoned so cruelly had changed her. She no longer had any respect for life. And the fact was, she was extremely good at her new job. She was very small and Chinese, so nobody ever suspected her and she was utterly without mercy because mercy, of course, wouldn't pay the school fees. And that was how she was supporting me at Harrow! Every time a bill arrived at the start of a new term, she would have to go out and kill someone. It's strange to think that fifteen men died to make my education possible—sixteen, in fact, when I decided to take up horse riding.

“After she'd finished with Crispin Odey, I never had any more trouble. Even the teachers went out of their way to be pleasant to me. I was actually made head boy in my last term, although between you and me, I was the second choice.”

“What happened to the first choice?”

“He fell off a roof. From Harrow, I went to London University, where I studied politics, and after that I joined the army. I was sent to Sandhurst, and I will never forget the day of my graduation parade, when I received a medal from the queen. I'm afraid it was all too much for my mother. A few weeks later she died quite suddenly. A massive heart attack, they said. I was shaken to the core because I loved her very much—and here's something you might like to know. I bribed one of the gardeners and had her remains scattered in the grounds of Buckingham Palace…in the roses. I knew it was something she would have appreciated.”

Major Yu had finished eating and the maid suddenly appeared to clear the dishes. Alex wondered how she had known when to arrive. Dessert was a rhubarb pie served with cream. At the same time, the maid brought in a cheese plate: cheddar, Stilton, and Red Leicester. All English, of course.

“There is not much more to tell,” Yu continued. “I served with distinction in the Falklands and the first Gulf War and was given two letters of commendation. I was as happy in the army as I had been at Harrow…happier, in fact, as I had discovered that—taking after my mother, perhaps—I rather enjoyed killing people, particularly foreigners. I rose to the rank of major, and it was then that the great tragedy of my life occurred. I was diagnosed with a quite serious illness. It was a rare form of osteoporosis known as brittle bone disease. The name tells you everything you need to know. What it meant was that my bones had become very fragile. In recent years, the condition has gotten considerably worse. As you can see, I need a stick to walk. I am forced to wear gloves to protect my hands. It is as if my entire skeleton is made of glass, and the slightest blow could cause a terrible injury.”

“You must be all broken up about that,” Alex remarked.

“You remind me of that boy I mentioned—Crispin Odey,” Yu replied. “He learned how unwise it was to annoy me and so, Alex, will you.”

He poured himself another glass of wine.

“I was forced to leave active service, but that was not the end of my career. I still had an excellent mind, and I was recommended for a job in intelligence…in MI6. That's quite a coincidence, don't you think? In other circumstances, you and I could have been working together. Unfortunately, though, it didn't quite work out that way.

“You see, at first I thought that it was all going to be very exciting. I imagined myself as quite the young James Bond. But I was never invited to be part of Special Operations like you, Alex. I never met anyone senior like Alan Blunt or Mrs. Jones. I was sent to the communications center at Cheltenham. It was a desk job! Can you imagine someone like me slaving away from nine to five in a boring little office, surrounded by secretaries and coffee machines? It was miserable. And all the time I knew that my disease was getting worse and that it was only a matter of time before I would be thrown out and put on the scrap heap.

“And so I decided to look out for myself. Despite everything, a lot of the information that passed my way at Cheltenham was highly sensitive and confidential. And of course there was a market for this sort of material. So, very carefully, I began to steal secrets from British intelligence—and guess where I took them! I went to the very snakehead that had employed my mother when she was in Hong Kong. They were delighted to have me, and quite soon I was being paid quite handsomely for my services.

“In the end I had to resign from MI6. The snakehead was paying me a fortune and they were offering me all sorts of career opportunities very quickly. I rose up the ladder until—by the early eighties—I had become number two in what was now the most powerful criminal organization in Southeast Asia.”

“And I suppose number one fell off a roof,” Alex said.

“As a matter of fact, he drowned…but you seem to have got the general idea.” Yu smiled. “Anyway, it was about this time that I heard rumors of a new organization that was being formed by people who were, in their own way, quite similar to me. I decided to diversify and, using my snakehead connections, I managed to contact them and eventually we met up in Paris to finalize details. That, of course, was the birth of Scorpia and I was one of the founding members.”

“So what are you doing now? Why do you need Royal Blue?”

Major Yu had been helping himself to cheese. He stopped with a piece of cheddar on the end of his knife. “You saw the bomb?” he asked.

Alex said nothing. There was no point in denying it.

“You really are a very capable young man, Alex. I see now that we were quite unwise to underestimate you last time.” Major Yu dropped the cheese onto his plate and reached for a cookie. “I'm going to tell you what the bomb is for because it will amuse me,” he went on. “But then I'm afraid you must be on your way.” He looked at his watch. “The plane will be here any minute.”

“Where am I going, Major Yu?”

“We'll get to that in a minute. Cheese?”

“Do you have any Brie?”

“Personally, I find French cheese disgusting.” He ate silently for a moment. “There is an island in the Timor Sea, not very far from here, in fact. Its name is Reef Island. You may have heard of it.”

Alex remembered the newscast he had heard on board the
Liberian Star.
A conference was taking place there. The alternative to the G8 summit. A meeting of famous people who were trying to make the world a better place.

“Scorpia has been given the job of destroying the island and the eight so-called celebrities who will be on it,” Yu went on. He was sounding pleased with himself. Alex imagined that must be one of the problems of being a criminal. You could never find anyone to tell about your crimes. “But what makes the task particularly interesting is that we have to make it look like an accident.”

“So you're going to blow them up,” Alex said.

“No, no, no, Alex. That wouldn't work at all. We have to be much more subtle. Let me explain.” He swallowed a piece of cheese and dabbed his lips with his napkin. “As it happens, Reef Island is located in what is known as a subduction zone. Perhaps you've studied that in geography. What it means is that underneath the sea, a few hundred miles north of the island, there are two tectonic plates pushing against each other with a fault line between them.

“Among its many business interests, the Chada Trading Agency is involved in deep-sea oil exploration and leases an oil platform in the Timor Sea. In the last couple of months, I have arranged for a shaft to be driven into the seabed, precisely over the fault line. This was quite a feat of engineering, Alex. We used the same reverse circulation system that was developed to build the ventilation shafts for the Hong Kong subway. I'm delighted to say that it was designed by Seacore, a British company…once again, one step ahead of the world.

“Normally, the pipe running down from the rig would be no more than five inches in diameter by the time it hit the oil field. However, our shaft will have ample room for Royal Blue. We will place the bomb half a mile below the surface of the seabed. I will then travel to the oil platform and personally detonate it…”

But what was the point? Alex went through what he had just been told, and suddenly he understood. He knew exactly what the result would be. Not just an explosion. Something much, much worse. He couldn't keep the horror out of his voice. “You're going to cause a wave,” he said. “A huge wave…”

“Go on, Alex.” Yu couldn't keep the glee out of his voice.

“A tsunami…” Alex whispered the word.

He could see it clearly. That was what had happened on December 26, 2004. An earthquake underneath the sea. A tsunami that had hit first Sumatra, then the coast of Somalia. More than two hundred thousand people had died.

“Exactly. The bomb will have the effect of lubricating the fault line.” Yu rested one hand on top of the other. “This will force one of the plates to rise.” He lifted the upper hand a few inches. “The result will be a deep water wave, just one yard high. You wouldn't think it could do much harm. But as it approaches the coastline, where the seabed begins to rise, the front will slow down and the rest of the water will pile up behind. By the time it hits Reef Island, a one-hundred-foot wall of water will have formed, traveling at about five hundred miles an hour…the speed of a jumbo jet. One cubic yard of water weighs about one ton, Alex. Imagine hundreds of cubic yards rushing in. There will be no warning. The island will be destroyed utterly. It is low-lying. There will be nowhere to hide. Every building will be smashed. Every single person on the island will be killed.”

“But the tsunami won't stop there!” Alex exclaimed. “What will happen to it after that?”

“That's a very intelligent observation. No. The tsunami will unleash the same amount of energy as several thousand nuclear weapons. It will continue on its way until it hits the coast of Australia. We'll be all right up here in Darwin, but I'm afraid a very large section of the western coast will disappear. Everything from Derby to Carnavon. Fortunately, there's nowhere very important or even attractive in that part of the country. Broome, Port Headland…few people have even heard of these places. And they're not exactly overpopulated. I wouldn't expect more than about ten or twenty thousand people to die. A small price to pay for a job well done.”

“But I don't understand…” Alex could feel his chest tightening. “You're going to do all this just to kill eight people?”

“Perhaps you didn't hear what I said. Their deaths have to look accidental. Our job is to make the world forget that this stupid conference ever took place. And so we will provide a natural disaster on a massive scale. Who will care about the extinction of eight people when the number of deaths rises into the thousands? Who will remember a little island when an entire continent has been hit?”

“But they'll know it was you! They'll know it was all started with a bomb.”

“That would be true if we used a nuclear bomb. There is an international network of seismographs. The
Poseidon
satellite in outer space. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. And so on. But the blast made by Royal Blue won't register. It will be lost as the tectonic plates shift and the devastation begins.”

Alex tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He had been sent to uncover a smuggling operation, and somehow instead he had stumbled into this terrible nightmare…another attempt by Scorpia to change the world. He had to stop himself from glancing at his watch. Several hours had passed since he had set the hands to eleven o'clock. Surely MI6 were on their way. Why weren't they already here?

“I expect you're wondering whether such a relatively small bomb will really be able to cause such havoc,” Major Yu continued. “Well, there is one other thing you need to know. As luck would have it, in three days' time, a rather special event is taking place. I'm afraid I don't know the astronomical term for it, but what we're talking about is the alignment of three celestial bodies—the sun, the moon, and the earth. And the moon is going to be particularly close. At midnight, in fact, it will be as close as it ever is.

“As a result, there will be a particularly strong gravitational pull on the earth's surface. I'm sorry, Alex. I'm beginning to sound like a schoolteacher. Let me put it more simply. The sun will be pulling one way. The moon will be pulling the other. And for just one hour, from midnight, the tectonic plate will be at its most volatile. A single explosion will be more than enough to begin the process I have described. Royal Blue is the perfect weapon for our needs. Undetectable. Invisible. And above all, British.”

Yu fell silent, and in that moment Alex heard the drone of a plane. He looked out the window and saw it circling. It was a seaplane, a tiny two-seater with floats instead of wheels. It could land on the sea right outside the house and tie up on the jetty that Alex had seen from his room. He knew it had come for him.

“Where are you taking me?” he demanded.

“Ah, yes. Now we come to the rub.” Major Yu had finished eating. He sat back and suddenly the gun was in his hand, pointing at Alex. He had certainly moved quickly. Alex hadn't even seen him draw it. “The easiest and perhaps the most sensible thing would be to shoot you now,” he said. “In half an hour you could be at the bottom of the ocean, and neither Mrs. Jones nor Mr. Ethan Brooke would ever know what had happened to you.

“But I'm not going to do that. Why? For two reasons. The first is that I really don't want to get blood on the carpet. You may have noticed that it's an Axminster—from the town of Axminster in Devonshire. The second is more personal. You owe me a great deal of money, Alex. You have to pay for the damage you did on the
Liberian Star.
There is still the rather more considerable debt that you owe to Scorpia following the collapse of Invisible Sword. And the truth is that although you may not realize it, right now you are worth a great deal to me alive.