Snakehead (20 page)

“How much were you told about my snakehead? People smuggling, weapons, drugs…these are all part of my business. But I have another highly profitable activity based a couple of hundred miles from here in a facility hidden in the heart of the Australian jungle. This facility deals in the sale of human organs.”

Alex said nothing. No words would come.

“Do you know how hard it is to find a kidney donor even if you are rich and live in the West?” Yu pointed the gun at Alex's stomach. “You are young and fit. I will be able to sell your kidney for a quarter of a million dollars. And the operation won't even kill you. You will live through it, and after that we'll be able to come back, perhaps, for your eyes.” The gun rose up to the level of Alex's head. “Your eyes will sell for fifty thousand dollars each, leaving you blind but otherwise in good health.” The gun dropped again. “You can live without your pancreas. It will make me a further one hundred thousand dollars. While you are recovering from each operation, I will drain off your blood cells and your plasma. They will be kept frozen and sold at five hundred dollars a pint. And finally, of course, there is your heart. The heart of a young healthy boy could fetch up to a million dollars more. Do you see, Alex? Shooting you does me no good at all. But keeping you alive is good for business, and you might even get some satisfaction in knowing, when you do finally die, that you have restored the health of quite a few people around the world.”

Alex swore. He spat out every foul word he knew. But Major Yu was no longer listening. The door to the dining room had opened again, but this time it wasn't the maid who had come in. Two men. Indonesian, like the maid. Alex hadn't seen them before. One of them placed a hand on his shoulder but Alex shrugged it off and stood up on his own. He wasn't going to let them drag them out of here.

“Good-bye, Alex,” Major Yu said. “I enjoyed meeting you.”

“Go to Hell, Major Yu,” Alex replied.

He turned around and, followed by the two men, walked out of the room.

T
HE PLANE WAS A
two-seater Piper Super Cub PA-18-150 with a top speed of just 130 miles per hour—but Alex had already been told that they wouldn't be traveling very far. He was sitting behind the pilot in the cramped cockpit with the buzz of the propellers wiping out any chance of conversation. Not that Alex had anything to talk about. His wrists and ankles were shackled. The seat belt had been fastened in such a way that he couldn't reach the release buckle.

He wondered briefly about the balding, red-necked man in front of him—paid to carry a boy to an unspeakable death. Was he married? Did he have children of his own? Alex had considered trying to bribe him. ASIS would pay twenty thousand dollars or more for his safe return. But he never even got a chance. The pilot only glanced at him once, revealing black sunglasses and a blank face, then put on headphones. Alex guessed that he would have been chosen carefully. Major Yu wasn't going to make any more mistakes.

But his worst mistake had already been made. He had left the watch on Alex's wrist…the same watch that was even now—surely—sending out a distress signal to MI6. It had to be. Inside Alex knew that without this one hope, if he didn't believe that despite everything he still had the advantage, he would have been paralyzed with fear. Major Yu's plan for him was the most evil thing he had ever heard…turning him from a human being into a bag of spare parts. Ash had certainly been right about the snakehead, and maybe Alex should have listened to his warnings. These people were death itself.

And yet…

Alex had been locked up at Yu's house throughout the night and for much of the morning. It was now almost midday. How long had it been since he had begun sending the signal? Fifteen hours at the very least. Maybe longer. MI6 would have received the signal in Bangkok. It would take them time to reach Australia. He had nothing to worry about. MI6 would be tracking him even now, watching him every inch of the way as he moved to the east.

But still Alex had to force himself to ignore the little voice in his ear. They should have been here already. They had decided not to bother. After all, he had called them once before when he was a prisoner in the academy in Point Blanc. That time, the panic button had been concealed in a CD player. He had pressed it, and they had done nothing. Was it happening a second time?

No. Don't go there. They would come.

He had no idea where they were heading, and the pilot's body was effectively blocking out the compass and any of the other controls that might have given him a clue. He had assumed at first that they would stick to the coast. After all, the plane had no wheels. It had to land on water. But for the last hour, they had been flying inland, and only the position of the sun gave him any sense of his direction. He looked out the window, past the blur of the propeller. The landscape was flat and rocky, covered in scrub. A brilliant blue river snaked down like a great crack in the surface of the world. Wherever this was, it was huge and empty. There was no sign of any roads. No houses. Nothing.

He tried to make out more of the pilot's features, but the man's eyes were fixed on the controls as if he were making a deliberate effort to ignore his passenger. He pulled on the joystick, and Alex leaned to one side as the plane dipped. Now he saw a canopy of green…a band of rain forest. Yu had spoken of the Australian jungle. Was this what he had meant?

The plane dipped down. Alex had been in rain forests before and recognized the extraordinary chaos of leaves and vines, a thousand different shades and sizes, each one of them endlessly fighting for a place in the sun. Surely there would be nowhere for them to land here? But then they flew over the edge of the canopy, and Alex saw a clearing and a river that swelled suddenly into a lake with a cluster of buildings around the edge and a jetty reaching out to welcome them.

“We're landing,” the pilot said—for no obvious reason. It was the first time he had spoken throughout the flight.

Alex felt his stomach shrink and his ears popped as they circled and began their descent. The sound of the engines rose as they neared the surface of the water. They touched down, sending spray in two directions. An osprey, frightened by the sudden arrival, leapt out of the undergrowth in a panic of beating wings. The pilot brought the plane around and they headed smoothly toward the jetty.

Two men had come out. They were both muscular, black, unsmiling, dressed in dirty jeans and string vests. They were Aboriginal. One of them was carrying a rifle, slung over his bare shoulder. The pilot cut the engines and opened the door. He had unhooked a paddle from the side of the cockpit and used it to steer the plane the last few yards. The two men helped tie it to the jetty. One of them opened the door and released Alex from his seat. Nobody spoke. That was perhaps more unnerving than anything else.

Alex took a look around him. The compound was clean and well ordered, with lawns that had recently been mown and neat flower beds. All the buildings were made of wood, painted white, with low roofs stretching out over long verandas. There were four houses, square and compact with open shutters and fans turning behind. Each of them had a balcony on the second floor with views down to the lake. One of the buildings was an office and administration center connected to a metal radio tower with two satellite dishes. There was a water tower and an electrical generator with a fence running around it, topped with razor wire.

The last building was the hospital itself, long and narrow with a row of windows covered in mosquito net and a red cross painted on the front door. This was where Alex would be sent when the time came…not once but again and again until there was nothing left of him. The thought made him shiver despite the damp heat of the afternoon, and he turned his head away.

At first sight, there didn't seem to be too much security—but then Alex noticed a second fence, this one on the edge of the compound and about ten yards high. It was painted green to blend in with the forest beyond. There were no boats moored to the jetty and no sign of any boathouse, so an escape downriver would be impossible too—unless he swam. And at the end of the day, what would be the point of breaking out of here? He had seen from the plane. He was in the middle of the outback with nowhere to go.

The two Aboriginals had each clamped hold of one of his arms, and now they led him toward the administrative building. As they reached the door, a young woman appeared, dressed as a nurse. She was short, plump, and blond. She had put on bright red lipstick, which seemed strangely at odds with her starched white uniform. One of her stockings had runs.

“You must be Alex,” she said. “I'm Nurse Hicks. But you can call me Charleen.”

Alex had never heard such a broad Australian accent. And what the woman was saying was simply crazy. She was welcoming him as if he might actually be glad to be here.

“Come right in,” she continued. Then she noticed the handcuffs. “Oh, for heaven's sake!” she exclaimed in a voice full of indignation. “You know we don't need those here, Jacko. Will you please remove them?”

One of the men produced a key and freed Alex's hands and feet. The nurse tut-tutted at them, then opened the door and led Alex down a corridor that was clean and simple, with rush matting and whitewashed walls. Fans were turning overhead, and there was music playing somewhere…a Mozart opera.

“The doc will see you now,” the nurse said brightly, as if he had booked an appointment weeks ago.

There was another door at the far end, and they went through. Alex found himself in a sparsely furnished room—little more than a desk and two chairs. There was a screen to one side, a small fridge, and a cart with some bottles, a stethoscope, and a pair of scalpels. The window was open, with a view of the jetty from where they had just come.

A man was sitting behind the desk, dressed not in a white coat but a turquoise open-neck shirt with the sleeves rolled up and jeans. He was in his forties, with thick blond hair and a craggy, weather-beaten face. He didn't look like a doctor. He hadn't shaved for a couple of days, and his hands were grubby. There was a glass of beer on his desk and an ashtray with a pile of stubs.

“Good day, Alex.” He also spoke with an Australian accent. “Take a seat!”

It wasn't an invitation. It was a command.

“I'm Bill Tanner. We're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks, so I might as well get a few things clear from the start. Fancy a beer?”

“No,” Alex replied.

“You'd better drink something anyway,” the nurse said. “You don't want to get dehydrated.” She went over to the fridge and produced a bottle of mineral water. Alex didn't touch it. He had already decided. He wasn't going to play these people's game.

“How was the flight?” Tanner asked.

Alex didn't answer.

The doctor shrugged. “You're angry. That's okay. I'd be pretty angry if I were in your shoes. But maybe you should have thought about the consequences before you took on the snakehead.”

He leaned forward, and Alex knew, with a sense of revulsion, that he had had this conversation many times before. Alex wasn't the first person to be brought unwillingly to this secret hospital. Others would have sat right where he was sitting now.

“Let me tell you how this works,” Dr. Tanner began. “You're going to die. I'm sorry to have to tell you that, but you might as well get used to it. We all have to die sometime, although for you it's probably a little sooner than expected. But you have to look on the bright side. You're going to be well looked after. We have a really qualified team here, and it's in our interests to keep you going as long as possible. You're going to have a lot of surgery, Alex. There are some bad days ahead. But you'll come through…I know you will. We'll help you to the finish line.”

Alex glanced briefly at the cart, measuring the distance between himself and the scalpel. He thought about making a grab for it, using it as a weapon. But that wouldn't help him. Better to take it with him, to find a use for it later. He realized that the doctor was waiting for him to reply. He answered with a single, ugly swearword. Tanner just smiled.

“Your language is a little ripe, son,” he said. “But that's all right. I've heard it all before.” He gestured out the window. “Now, you're probably wondering how you can escape from here,” he went on. “You've seen the fence, and you're thinking you can climb over it. Or maybe you've looked at the river and decided you can try swimming. It all looks pretty easy, doesn't it? No TV cameras. Just the seven of us in the compound. Me, four nurses, Jacko, and Quombi. Not much security…that's what you're thinking.

“Well, I'm sorry to tell you, mate. But you're wrong. You go out at night and you're going to have to reckon with Jacko's dog. It's a pit bull. His name is Spike, and he's a nasty piece of work. He'll rip you apart as soon as look at you. As for the fence, it's electrified. Touch it and it'll take you a week to wake up. And you're not getting anywhere near the generator—not unless you know how to bite your way through razor wire—so you can forget about tampering with the current.

“And even if you did manage to get out, it wouldn't do you much good. We're on the edge of the Kakadu National Park…two billion years old and as bad as the world was when it began. The start of Arnhem Land is about a mile from here, but that's a mile of tropical rain forest, and you'd never find your way through. Assuming a death adder or a king brown didn't get you, there are spiders, wasps, stinging nettles, biting ants, and—waiting for you on the other side—saltwater crocodiles.” He jerked a thumb. “There are a hundred ways to die out there, and all of them are more painful than anything we've got lined up for you here.

“That leaves the river. Looks pretty tempting, doesn't it? Well, there are no boats here. No canoes or kayaks or rafts or anything else you can get your hands on. We even keep the coffins locked up after one guy tried to bust out in one of those. You remember that, Charleen?”

The nurse laughed. “He was using the lid as a paddle.”

“But he didn't get very far, Alex, and neither would you. Because this is the start of the storm season…what the Aboriginals call Gunumeleng. The water's swollen and fast-moving. About ten minutes downriver you'll hit the first rapids, and after that it just gets worse and worse. You try to swim, you'll be cut to pieces on the rocks. You'll almost certainly drown first. And waiting for you a mile downstream is the Bora Falls. A fifty-yard drop with a ton of water crashing down every minute. So do you get what I'm saying? You're stuck here, mate, and that's that.”

Alex said nothing, but he was storing away everything Tanner was telling him. It was just possible that the doctor was giving away more than he realized. Outside the window, he heard a sudden whirring. The engine of the Piper had started again. He glanced out and saw the seaplane moving away from the jetty, preparing to take off.

“We're not going to lock you up, Alex,” Tanner went on. “The grub's good, and if you want a beer, just help yourself. There's no TV, but you can listen to the radio, and I think we've got a few books. The point I'm trying to make is—right now, you're here as our guest. Soon you'll be here as our patient, And after we've begun work, you won't be going anywhere. But until then, I want you to take it easy.”

“We have to watch your blood pressure,” the nurse muttered.

“That's right. And now, if you don't mind, I'd like you to roll up a sleeve so I can take a blood sample. It doesn't matter which arm. I also want a urine sample. It looks to me like you're pretty fit, but I need to get it all down on the computer.”

Alex didn't move.

“It's your choice, son,” Tanner said. “You cooperate or you don't cooperate. But if you want to play hardball, I'll have to call Jacko and Quombi in. They'll rough you up a little and then they'll tie you down and I'll get what I want anyway. You don't want that, do you? Make it easy on yourself…”