Snakehead (2 page)

“And what weapon is that?” the Frenchman demanded.

“It's a bomb. But a very special bomb…a prototype. As far as I know, there is only one in existence. The British have given it a code name. They call it Royal Blue.”

“Major Yu is absolutely right,” Kurst cut in. “Royal Blue is currently in a highly secret weapons facility just outside London. That is why I chose to hold the meeting here today. The building has been under surveillance for the past month, and a team is already waiting on standby. By this evening, the bomb will be in our possession. After that, Major Yu, I am placing this operation in your hands.”

Major Yu nodded slowly.

“With respect, Mr. Kurst,” It was Levi Kroll speaking. His voice was ugly, and there was very little respect in it. “I was under the impression that
I
would be in command of the next operation.”

“I am afraid you will have to wait, Mr. Kroll. As soon as Royal Blue is in our hands, it will be flown to Jakarta and then carried by sea to its final destination. This is a region of the world where you have no working experience. For Major Yu, however, it is another matter. Over the past seven years he has been active in Bangkok, Jakarta, Bali, and Lombok. He also has a base in northern Australia. He has constructed and now controls a huge criminal network that goes by the name of
shetou—
or, in English, snakehead. They will smuggle the weapon for us. The snakehead is a formidable organization, and in this instance it is best suited to our needs.”

The Israeli nodded briefly. “You are right. I apologize for my interruption.”

“I accept your apology,” Kurst replied, although he hadn't. It occurred to him that one day Levi Kroll might have to go. The man spoke too often without thinking first.

There was little left to be said. Winston Yu took off his glasses and polished them, using his gloved fingers. His eyes were a strange, almost metallic gray with lids that folded in on themselves. “I will contact my people in Bangkok and warn them the machine is on its way. I already have some thoughts as to its location with regard to Reef Island. And as to this conference with its high ideals, you need have no worries. I am very happy to assure you…it will never take place.”

 

At six o'clock in the evening, two days later, a blue Renault Megane turned off the M11 highway, taking an exit marked Service Vehicles Only. There are many such turnings on the British highway system. Thousands of vehicles roar past them every hour, and the drivers never glance at them twice. And indeed, the great majority of them are completely innocent, leading to service areas or to police traffic control centers. But the highway system has its secrets too. As the Renault made its way slowly forward and came to a shuddering halt in front of what looked like a single-story office compound, it was tracked by three television cameras, and the security men inside went onto immediate alert.

The building was in fact a laboratory and weapons research center, belonging to the Ministry of Defense. Very few people knew of its existence, and even fewer were allowed in or out. The car that had just arrived was unauthorized and the two security men—both of them recruited from the special forces—should have immediately raised the alarm. That was the protocol.

But the Renault Megane is one of the most innocent and ordinary of family cars, and this one had clearly been involved in a bad accident. The windshield had shattered. The hood was crumpled, and steam was rising from the grille. A man wearing a green anorak and a cap was in the driving seat. There was a woman next to him with blood pouring down the side of her face. Worse than that, there were two small children in the backseat, and although the image on the television screen was a little fuzzy, they seemed to be in a bad way. Neither of them was moving. The woman managed to get out of the car—but then she collapsed. Her husband sat where he was as if dazed.

The two security men ran out to them. It was human nature. Here was a young family that needed help, and anyway, it wasn't that much of a security risk. The front door of the building swung shut behind them and would need a seven-digit code to open again. Both men carried radio transmitters and nine-millimeter Browning automatic pistols underneath their jackets. The Browning is an old weapon, but it's a very reliable one, making it a favorite with the special forces.

The woman was still lying on the ground. The man who had been driving managed to open the door as the two men arrived.

“What happened?” one of them asked.

It was only now, when it was too late, that they began to realize that none of this added up. A car that had crashed on the highway would have simply pulled onto the hard shoulder—if it had been able to drive at all. And how come it was only this one car, with these four people, that had been involved? Where were the other drivers? Where were the police? But any last doubt was removed when the two security men reached the car. The two children in the backseat were dummies. With their cheap wigs and plastic smiles they were like something out of a nightmare.

The woman on the ground twisted around, a machine pistol appearing in her hand. She shot the first of the security guards in the chest. The second was moving quickly, reaching for his own weapon, taking up a combat stance. He never had a chance. The driver had been balancing a silenced micro-Uzi submachine gun on his lap. He tilted it and pulled the trigger. The gun barely whispered as it fired twenty rounds in less than a second. The guard was flung away.

The couple were already up and running toward the building. They couldn't get in yet, but they didn't need to. They made their way toward the back, where a silver box, about two yards square, had been attached to the brickwork. The man carried a tool kit that he had brought from the car. The woman stopped briefly and fired three times, taking out all the cameras. At the same time, an ambulance appeared, driving up from the highway. It drew in behind the parked car.

The next phase of the mission took very little time. The facility was equipped with a standard CBR air filtration system—the letters stood for “chemical, biological, and radioactive.” It was designed to counter an enemy attack, but in fact the exact opposite was about to happen as the enemy turned the system against itself. The man took a miniaturized oxyacetylene torch out of his toolbox and used it to burn out the screws. This allowed him to unfasten a metal panel, revealing a complicated tangle of pipes and wires. From somewhere inside his anorak, he produced a gas mask, which he strapped over his face. He reached back into his toolbox and took out a metal vial, a few inches long, with a nozzle and a spike. The man knew exactly what he was doing. Using the heel of his hand, he jammed the spike into one of the pipes. Finally, he turned the nozzle.

The hiss was almost inaudible as a stream of potassium cyanide mixed with the air circulating inside the building. Meanwhile, four men dressed as paramedics but all wearing gas masks had approached the front door. One of them pressed a magnetized box, no bigger than a cigarette pack, against the lock. He stepped back. There was an explosion. The door swung open.

It was early evening, and only half a dozen people had still been working inside the facility. Most of them were technicians. One was an armed security guard. He had been trying to make a telephone call when the gas had hit him. He was lying on the floor, a look of surprise on his face. The receiver was still in his hand.

Through the entrance hall, down a corridor, and through a door marked RESTRICTED AREA…the four paramedics knew exactly where they were going. The bomb was in front of them. It looked remarkably old-fashioned, like something out of World War II—a huge metal cylinder, silver in color, flat at one end, pointed at the other. Only a data screen, built into the side, and a series of digital controls brought it back into the twenty-first century. It was strapped down to a power-assisted cart, and the whole thing would fit inside the ambulance with just inches to spare. But that, of course, was why the ambulance had been chosen.

They guided it back down the corridor and out through the front door. The ambulance was equipped with a ramp, and it rolled smoothly into the back, allowing room for the driver and one passenger in the front. The other three men and the woman climbed into the car. The dummies of the children were left behind. The entire operation had taken eight and a half minutes. Thirty seconds less than planned.

An hour later, by the time the alarm had been raised in London and other parts of the country, everyone involved had disappeared. They had discarded the wigs, contact lenses, and facial padding that had completely changed their appearance. The two vehicles had been incinerated.

And the weapon known as Royal Blue had already begun its journey east.

“A
LEX
R
IDER
.”

The blind man spoke the two words as if they had only just occurred to him. He let them roll over his tongue, tasting them like a fine wine. He was sitting in a soft leather armchair, the sort of furniture that would have been normal in an executive office but that was surprising in a plane, twenty-five thousand feet above Adelaide. The plane was a Gulfstream V executive jet that had been specially adapted for its current use, equipped with a kitchen and bathroom, a satellite link for worldwide communications, a forty-inch plasma TV connected to three twenty-four-hour news services, and a bank of computers. There was even a basket for Garth, the blind man's guide dog.

The man's name was Ethan Brooke, and he was the chief executive of the Covert Action Division of ASIS—the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. His department was inevitably known as CAD, but only by the people who worked in it. Very few other people even knew it existed.

Brooke was a large man, in his mid-fifties, with sand-colored hair and ruddy, weather-beaten cheeks that suggested years spent outdoors. He had indeed been a soldier, a lieutenant colonel with the commandos, until a land mine in East Timor had sent him first into the hospital for three months and then into a new career in intelligence. He wore Armani sunglasses, tinted silver, rather than the traditional black glasses of a blind man, and his clothes were casual: jeans, a jacket, and an open-neck shirt. A senior minister in the Australian defense department had once complained about the way he dressed. That same minister was now carrying luggage in a three-star Sydney hotel.

He was not alone. Sitting opposite him was a second man, almost half his age, slim, with short, fair hair. He was wearing a suit. Marc Damon had applied to join Australian intelligence the day after he had left the university. He had done this by breaking into the main offices of ASIS in Canberra and leaving his application on Brooke's desk. The two of them had now worked together for six years.

It was Damon who had produced the file—marked TOP SECRET: CAD EYES ONLY—that lay on the table between them. Although its contents had been translated into Braille, Brooke no longer had any need to refer to them. He had read the pages once and had instantly memorized their contents. He now knew everything he needed about the boy called Alex Rider. The only part that was missing from his consciousness was a true picture of the fourteen-year-old. There was a photograph attached to the cover, but as always he had been forced to rely on the official report:

 

Physical description/attributes

Subject is five feet, seven inches tall, still short for his age, but this adds to his operational value. Weight: 140 pounds. Hair color: fair. Eyes: brown. His physical condition is excellent but may have been compromised by his recent injury (see Scorpia file). The boy is known to be fluent in two languages—French and Spanish—and is also proficient in German. He has practiced karate since the age of eight and has reached first
kyu
grade (black belt). Weapons training: none. Progress at school has been slow, with negative feedback from many of his teachers. Spring and summer reports from Brookland School are attached. However, it must be remembered that he has been absent from class for much of the past nine months.

Psychological profile

AR was recruited by the Special Operations Division of MI6 in March of this year, age fourteen years and one month. His father was John Rider—alias Hunter—who was killed in action. His mother died at the same time, and he was brought up by his uncle, Ian Rider, also an active agent with MI6.

It seems certain that the boy was physically and mentally prepared for intelligence work from the earliest age. Quite apart from the languages and martial arts, Ian Rider equipped him with many skills, including fencing, mountain climbing, white-water rafting, and scuba diving.

And yet, despite his obvious aptitude for intelligence work (see below), AR has shown little enthusiasm for it. Like most teenagers, he is not a patriot and has no interest in politics. MI6 (SO) found it necessary to coerce him to work for them on at least two occasions.

He is popular at school…when he is there. Hobbies: soccer (Chelsea supporter), tennis, music, movies. Evident interest in girls—see separate file on Sabina Pleasure + report by CIA operative Tamara Knight. Lives with American housekeeper, Jack Starbright (note: despite first name she is a female). No ambitions to follow his father or uncle into intelligence.

Past assignments—active service

The British secret service refuses to admit that it has ever employed a juvenile, and so it has been difficult to draw together any concrete evidence of his record as an agent in the field. We believe, however, that he has worked for them on four occasions. He has also been loaned to the United States, where he has been employed by the CIA with equal success at least twice.

United Kingdom: See Herod Sayle: Sayle Enterprises, Cornwall. Dr. Marius Grief: Point Blanc Academy, France. Damian Cray: Cray Software Technology, Amsterdam. Julia Rothman: Scorpia executive. Operation Invisible Sword.

United States: FILES CLOSED. Possible link with General Alexei Sarov—Skeleton Key. Nikolei Drevin—Flamingo Bay (termination of Ark Angel project).

Although it has so far proved impossible to confirm details, it appears that in the space of one year, AR has been involved in six major assignments, succeeding against impossible odds. He has survived assassination attempts by both Scorpia and the Chinese triads.

Current status: available.

Footnote: In 2006, the FBI attempted to recruit a teenage agent to combat drug syndicates operating out of Miami. The boy was killed almost immediately. The experiment has not been repeated.

 

Secret service files are the same the world over. They are written by people who live in a very black-and-white world and who, by and large, have no time for creative imagination…certainly not if it gets in the way of the facts. The various pages on Alex Rider had given Brooke a vague impression of the boy. They had certainly been enough to set his mind working. But he suspected that they left out as much as they revealed.

“He's in Australia,” he muttered.

“Yes, sir.” Damon nodded. “He sort of dropped in on us from outer space.”

Brooke smiled. “You know, if anyone else told me that, I'd swear they were yanking my chain. He really went into space?”

“He was pulled out of the sea a hundred miles off the west coast. He was sitting in the reentry module of a Soyuz-Fregat. Of course, the Americans aren't telling us anything. But it's probably no coincidence that according to NIWO, the Ark Angel space station blew up at around the same time.”

NIWO is the National Intelligence Watch Office. It employs around 2,000 people who keep up a constant surveillance on everything happening in the world…and outside it.

“That was Drevin's big idea,” Brooke muttered. “A space hotel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I always had a feeling he was up to no good.”

There was a moment of turbulence and the plane dipped down. The dog, in its basket, whined. It never had cared much for flying. But then they steadied and continued in their arc over the clouds, heading northeast to Sydney.

“You think we can use him?” Brooke demanded.

“Alex Rider doesn't like being used,” Damon replied. “And from what I've read, there's no way he's going to volunteer. But it did occur to me that if we could find some sort of leverage, he would be perfect for what we need. Put a kid into the pipeline and nobody's going to suspect a thing. It's exactly the same reason the Americans sent him to Skeleton Key—and it worked for them.”

“Where is he now?”

“They flew him over to Perth, sir. A bit of a hike, but they wanted him somewhere safe and they settled on SAS HQ at Swanbourne. He's going to need a couple of days to wind down.”

Brooke fell silent. With his eyes permanently covered, it was always difficult to work out what he was thinking—but Damon knew that he would be turning over all the possibilities, that he would come very quickly to a decision and stick by it. Maybe there was no way that ASIS could persuade this English kid to work for them. But if there was a single weakness, anything they could use to their advantage, Brooke would find it.

A moment later he nodded. “We could connect him with Ash,” he said.

And there it was. Simple but brilliant.

“Ash is in Singapore,” Damon said.

“Operational?”

“A routine assignment.”

“As of now he's reassigned. We'll put the two of them together and send them in. They'll make a perfect team.”

Damon couldn't help smiling. Alex Rider would work with the agent they all called Ash. But there was just one problem. “You think Ash will work with a teenager?” he asked.

“He will if this kid's as good as everyone says he is.”

“He'll need proof of that.”

This time it was Brooke's turn to smile. “Leave that to me.”

 

The SAS compound at Swanbourne is a few miles north of Perth and has the appearance of a low-rise vacation village, although perhaps one with more security than most. It stretches out next to the white sand and blue water of the Indian Ocean, sheltered from public view by a series of sand dunes. The buildings are clean, modern, and unremarkable. But for the rise and fall of the barrier at the main gate, the military vehicles passing in and out, and the occasional sighting of men in khaki and black berets, it would be hard to believe that this is the HQ of Australia's toughest and most elite fighting force.

Alex Rider stood at the window of his room looking out over the main square with the indoor shooting range on one side and the gymnasium and fitness center on the other. He wanted to go home and wondered how long they were going to keep him here. Certainly, his stay on the
Kitty Hawk
had been short enough. He had barely had time to eat breakfast before he had been bundled onto a Hawkeye jet, an oxygen mask strapped over his face, and then blasted off back into the sky. Nobody had even told him where they were taking him, but he had seen the name written in large letters on the airport terminal. Perth. There had been a jeep parked on the runway, and the next thing he knew, he was bouncing through the very ordinary-looking suburb of Swanbourne. The jeep drove into the SAS compound and stopped. A single soldier was waiting for him, his face set, his mouth a straight line that gave nothing away. Alex was shown into a comfortable room with a bed, a TV, and a view of the sand dunes. The door was closed, but it wasn't locked.

And here he was now. At the end of a journey that had been literally out of this world. He wondered what would happen next.

There was a knock on the door. Alex opened it. A second soldier in green-and-ocher battle fatigues stood in front of him.

“Mr. Rider?”

“I'm Alex.”

“Colonel Abbott sends his compliments. He'd like to speak to you.”

Alex followed the soldier across the compound. For the moment there was nobody else around. The sun was beating down on the empty parade ground. It was almost midday, and the Australian summer was already making itself felt. They reached a bungalow, standing on its own near the edge of the complex. The soldier knocked and, without waiting for an answer, opened the door for Alex to go in.

A thin, businesslike man in his forties was sitting behind a desk, also wearing battle fatigues. He had been writing a report, but he stood up as Alex came in.

“So you're Alex Rider!” The Australian accent came almost as a surprise. With his short, dark hair and craggy features, Abbott could have been mistaken for an Englishman. He reached out and shook Alex's hand firmly. “I'm Mike Abbott, and I'm really pleased to meet you, Alex. I've heard a lot about you.” Alex looked surprised, and Abbott laughed. “Six months ago, there was a rumor that the Brits were using a teenage agent. Of course, nobody believed it. But it seems they've been keeping you busy, and after you took out Damian Cray…well, I'm afraid you can't blow up Air Force One in the middle of London without someone hearing about it. But don't worry! You're among friends.”

Abbott gestured toward a chair and Alex sat down. “It's very kind of you, Colonel,” he said. “But I really want to get back home.”

Abbott returned to his own chair. “I can understand that, Alex. And I really want to send you on your way. We just need to fix a couple of things.”

“What things?”

“Well, you landed in Australia without a visa.” Abbott held up two hands before Alex could interrupt. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but it has to be sorted out. As soon as I've got the green light, I'll book you on the first plane back to London.”

“There's someone I want to call….”

“I suppose you're thinking about Jack Starbright. Your housekeeper.” Abbott smiled, and Alex wondered how he knew about her. “You're too late, Alex. She's been kept fully informed, and she's already on her way. Her flight left Heathrow about an hour ago, but it'll take her another twenty-five hours to arrive. The two of you will meet up in Sydney. In the meantime, you're my guest here at Swanbourne, and I want you to enjoy yourself. We're right on the beach, and right now it's the start of the Australian summer. So relax. I'll let you know as soon as there's any news about the visa.”

Alex wanted to argue but decided against it. The Colonel seemed friendly enough, but there was something about him that made Alex think twice before speaking. You don't rise up the ranks of the SAS unless you're exceptionally tough—and there was certainly steel behind that smile.

“Anything else you want to know?”

“No thanks, Colonel.”

The two of them shook hands. “I've asked some of the boys to look after you,” Abbott said. “They've been looking forward to meeting you. Just let me know if anyone gives you a hard time.”