Snakehead Read online

  “He’s a child, Mr. Kurst. A very clever child, but a child all the same. I think you’re overreacting.”

  Something deadly flickered in Kurst’s eyes, and Yu made a mental note not to eat anything more. He wouldn’t put it past Scorpia to slip a radioactive pellet into an egg-and-cress sandwich. They had done it before.

  “We will be monitoring the situation,” Kurst said at length. “And I’m warning you, Major Yu, if we feel that things are getting out of hand, you will be replaced.”

  He got up and left.

  Yu stayed where he was, thinking about what had just been said. He suspected that Levi Kroll was behind this. The Israeli had been maneuvering to take over control of Scorpia ever since Max Grendel had retired. He had also volunteered for the Reef Island business. He would be itching to move in if Yu failed.

  He was not going to fail. Royal Blue had been thoroughly tested by Yu’s operatives in Bangkok. The detonation system had been adapted. And in just two days’ time it would set off on the next leg of its journey. All according to plan. But at the same time, Yu had decided to take out a little insurance. He and he alone would set off the bomb. He was the one who would take the credit for the worldwide devastation that would follow.

  But how to stop Kroll from seizing control?

  It was very simple. A little technological tinkering and nobody would be able to replace him. Yu smiled to himself and called for the bill.

  “I should never have let you go,” Ash exclaimed. “I can’t believe I let them do that to you.”

  It was one o’clock in the morning in Bangkok, and Alex and Ash were back in their room on the third floor.

  Alex had abandoned the ferry downriver on the other side of an ugly modern bridge. From there, he’d had to find his way across the city on foot, dripping wet, without money and relying only on his sense of direction. He had stopped twice to ask for directions from a monk and from a stall holder closing up for the night. They spoke little English but were able to understand enough to point him in the right direction. Even so, it had been well after midnight by the time he had reached Chinatown. Ash had been pacing the room like a lion in a cage, sick with worry, and had grabbed hold of Alex when he finally arrived. He had listened to the story with disbelief.

  “I shouldn’t have let you go,” he said again.

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I’ve heard about these fights. The snakeheads use them all the time. Anyone who crosses them can end up in the ring. People get crippled…or killed.”

  “I was lucky.”

  “You were smart, Alex.” Ash looked at him approvingly, as if seeing him in a completely different light. “You say someone was there shooting. They attacked the building. Did you see who they were?”

  “I got a glimpse of someone. But I’m sorry, Ash. It was dark and it was all happening too quickly.”

  “Were they Thai or European?”

  “I didn’t see.”

  Alex was sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. Ash had put his clothes out to dry—not that there was much chance of that. The night itself was damp, on the edge of a tropical storm. He had also brought Alex a bowl of chicken broth from the restaurant at the end of the alleyway. Alex needed it. He hadn’t eaten since late that afternoon. He was starving and exhausted.

  Ash examined him. “I remember the first time I met your father,” he said suddenly. The change of subject took Alex by surprise. “I’d been sent out on a routine operation…in Prague. I was just backup. He was in charge…for the first time, I think. He was only a couple of years older than me.” He took out a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers. “Anyway, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. A building blown to smithereens. Three ex-KGB agents dead in the street. The Czech police crawling all over us. And he was just like you are now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you take after him,” Ash explained. “John always had the luck of the devil. He’d walk into trouble and somehow he’d get out of it in one piece. And then he’d sit there—the same as you—as if nothing had happened. Untouched by it.”

  “His luck ran out in the end,” Alex said.

  “Everyone’s luck runs out in the end,” Ash replied, and turned away, a haunted look in his eyes.

  They didn’t talk much more after that. Alex finished his soup and fell asleep almost immediately. The last thing he remembered was Ash, hunched over a cigarette, the red tip winking at him in the darkness as if sharing a secret.

  Despite everything, Alex woke early the next morning. There were a couple of fat cockroaches crawling up the wall right next to him, but by now he had gotten used to them. They didn’t bite or sting. They were just ugly. He ignored them and got out of bed. Ash had already been out, taking Alex’s wet clothes to a laundry to be spun dry. He got dressed quickly, and the two of them went out for a bowl of jok—the rice porridge that many of the stalls served for breakfast.

  They ate in silence, squatting on two wooden crates at the edge of the road with the traffic rumbling past. It had rained in the night, and there were huge puddles everywhere that somehow slowed the city down even more. Once again, Ash had slept badly and there were dark rings under his eyes. His wound was hurting him. He did his best not to show it, but Alex noticed him wince as he sat down, and he looked more ragged and drawn out than ever.

  “I’m going to have to cross the river,” he said at last.

  “The Chada Trading Agency?” Alex shrugged. “You won’t find very much of it left.”

  “I was thinking the same thing about our assignment.” Ash threw down his spoon. “I’m not blaming you for what happened last night,” he said. “But it may well be that our friends in the snakehead have no further interest in smuggling us into Australia. One of their main lieutenants is probably dead. And it has to be said, you took out a large chunk of their operation.”

  “I didn’t set fire to the arena!” Alex protested.

  “No. But you pulled it into the river.”

  “That put the fire out.”

  Ash half smiled. “Fair point. But I need to find out how things stand.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Absolutely not, Alex. I think that’s a bad idea. You go back to the room…and watch out for yourself. It’s always possible that they’ll send someone around to settle the score. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He walked off. Alex thought back over what he’d just said. Was Ash angry with him? It was difficult to read his moods…as if a life in the secret service had put any display of emotion under wraps. But Alex could see that things hadn’t quite gone as expected. His job was to infiltrate the snakehead, not start a war with it. And the fake papers that were so important to Ash might well be sitting on the bottom of the river—and the rest of the Chada Trading Agency with them.

  Alex got to his feet and began to walk slowly along the street, barely glancing at the brightly colored silks that every shop in this area seemed to sell. Thai main streets certainly weren’t like English ones. In England, things were spread out. Here, you’d get whole clusters of shops all selling the same thing: whole streets of silk, whole streets of ceramics. He wondered how people chose where to go.

  He wished Ash had taken him along. The truth was that he didn’t want to spend any more time on his own and he’d had enough of Bangkok. As for his hopes that meeting Ash would tell him anything about himself, so far all he had been given were a few glimpses of the past. He was beginning to wonder if his godfather would ever open up enough to say anything meaningful at all.

  He had just reached the top of the alleyway when he realized he was being followed.

  Ash had warned him to keep his eyes open—and perhaps it was thanks to him that Alex spotted the man on the other side of the road, half hidden behind a vegetable stall. He didn’t need to look twice. The man had changed his clothes. Gone were the red poppy and the leather jacket. But Alex was absolutely certain. This was the same square, hard-edged face t
hat he had already seen at the airport and then again outside the Peninsula Hotel. Now he was here. He must have been trailing Alex for days.

  The man had dressed himself up as a tourist, complete with camera and baseball cap, but his attention was fixed on the building where Alex and Ash were staying. Perhaps he was waiting for them to come out. Once again, Alex got the feeling that he knew the man from somewhere. But where? In which country? Could this be one of his old enemies catching up with him? He examined the cold blue eyes beneath the fringe of dark hair. A soldier? Alex was just about to make a connection when the man turned and began to walk away. He must have decided that there was no one at home. Alex made an instant decision. To hell with what Ash had told him. He was going to follow.

  The man had set off down Yaowarak Road, one of the busiest streets in Chinatown, with huge signs carrying Chinese hieroglyphics high into the air. Alex was confident he wouldn’t be seen. As ever, the pavement was cluttered with stalls, and if the man glanced back, Alex could find somewhere to hide in an instant. The real danger was that Alex could lose him. Despite the early hour, the crowds were already out—they formed a constantly shifting barrier between the two of them—and the man could disappear all too easily into a dozen entranceways. There were shops selling gold and spices. Cafés and restaurants. Arcades and tiny alleyways. The trick was to stay close enough not to lose him but far enough away not to be seen.

  But the man didn’t suspect anything. His pace hadn’t changed. He took a right turn, then a left, and suddenly they were out of Chinatown and heading into the Old City, the very heart of Bangkok, where every street seemed to contain a temple or a shrine. The pavements were emptier here, and Alex had to be more careful, dropping farther back and hovering close to doorways or parked cars in case he had to duck out of sight.

  They had been walking for about ten minutes when the man turned off, passing through the entrance to a large temple complex. The gateway itself was decorated with silver and mother-of-pearl and opened into a courtyard filled with shrines and statues: a fantastic, richly decorated world where myth and religion collided in a cloud of incense and a blaze of gold and brilliantly colored mosaic.

  The Thai word for a Buddhist monastery or temple is wat. There are thirty thousand of them scattered across the country, hundreds in Bangkok alone. There was a sign outside this one, giving its name in Thai and—helpfully—in English. It was called Wat Ho.

  Alex only had a few moments to take in his surroundings: the ornamental ponds and bodhi trees that grow in every wat because they once gave shelter to the Buddha. He glanced at the golden figures—half woman, half lion—that guarded the main temple, the delicate slanting roofs, and the mondops… incredible, intricate towers with hundreds of tiny figures that must have taken years to carve by hand. A group of monks walked past him. Everywhere there were people kneeling in prayer. He had never been anywhere so peaceful.

  The man he was following had disappeared behind a bell tower. Alex was suddenly afraid that he was going to lose him, at the same time wondering what it was that had brought him here. Could he have been mistaken? Could the man be a tourist after all? He hurried around the corner and stopped. The man had gone. In front of him, a crowd of Thais were kneeling at a shrine. A couple of backpackers were having their photograph taken in front of one of the terraces. Alex was angry with himself. He had been too slow. The entire journey had been a waste of time.

  He took a step forward and froze as a shadow fell across him and a hand pressed something hard into his back.

  “Don’t turn around,” a voice commanded, speaking in English.

  Alex stood where he was, a sick feeling in his stomach. This was exactly what Ash had warned him against. The snakehead had sent someone after him, and he had allowed himself to be led straight into a trap. But why here—in a Thai temple? And how did the man know he spoke English?

  “Walk across the courtyard. There’s a red door on the other side of the shrine. Do you see it?”

  Alex nodded. The man had a Liverpool accent. It sounded completely weird in the context of a Bangkok temple.

  “Don’t turn around. Don’t try anything. We’re going through the door. I’ll give you more instructions on the other side.”

  Another jab with the gun. Alex didn’t need any more prompting. He walked away from the bell tower, skirting the Thai people lost in their prayers. Briefly, he considered starting a fight, out here, while there were still witnesses. But it would do him no good. The man could shoot him in the back and disappear before anyone knew what had happened. The moment would come…but not yet.

  The red door was set in the wall of a cloister—somewhere for the monks to walk in silent contemplation. It was surrounded by images of the Ramakien, the great story of gods and demons known to every child in Thailand. Gods or demons? He had little doubt to which one of them the man belonged.

  As he approached, the door clicked open automatically. There had to be a surveillance camera somewhere, but, looking around, Alex couldn’t see it. There was a modern corridor on the other side, with bare brick walls slanting down toward a second door. This one opened too. All the sounds of the temple had faded away behind him. He felt as if he was being swallowed up.

  Alex wasn’t going to let that happen. He timed his move very carefully. The second doorway was narrow, leading into a square-shaped hall that could have been the reception area of a lawyer’s office or a stylish private bank. The walls were covered in wooden panels. There was an antique table with a lamp, a fan turning overhead. And more bizarre than anything, on the opposite wall, a picture of the queen of England.

  As Alex made his way in, he hesitated, allowing the man to catch up. Then suddenly he punched backward with his elbow, bringing his fist swinging around in the same motion.

  It was a move he had been taught when he was training with the SAS in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. The elbow jab winds your man. The fist carries the gun aside, giving you time to spin around and kick out with all your strength. Never try it in the open because you’ll end up getting shot. It only works in a confined space.

  But not this time. The man seemed to have been expecting the maneuver. He had simply stepped aside the moment Alex began his move. Alex’s first strike didn’t make contact with anything, and before he could even begin to turn, he felt the cold farewell of the gun pressed against the side of his head.

  “Nice try, Cub,” the man said. “But much too slow.”

  And that was when Alex knew. “Fox!” he exclaimed.

  The gun didn’t matter anymore. Alex turned to stand face-to-face with the man—who was now grinning at him like an old friend. Which, in a sense, he was. The two of them had actually met in the Brecon Beacons. There had been four men in the unit to which Alex had been assigned: Wolf, Eagle, Snake, and Fox. None of them had been allowed to use their real names. While he was with them, Alex was Cub. And now that he thought about it, there had been one with a Liverpool accent. It seemed incredible that the two of them should have met up again in Bangkok, but there could be no doubt about it. Fox was standing in front of him now.

  “You were at the airport,” Alex said. “I saw you, wearing a poppy.”

  “Yes. I should have taken that off. But I’d just flown in from London myself.”

  “And you were at the Peninsula Hotel.”

  Fox nodded. “I couldn’t believe it was you when I first saw you, so I followed you to be sure. I’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since, Alex. Lucky for you…”

  “Last night…” Alex’s head swam. “Was that you at the arena? You set the place on fire!”

  “I followed you over to Patpong, and I was there when those men picked you up. Then I followed them down to the Chada Trading Agency. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you. And it took me ages to weasel my way in. When I arrived, you were already in the ring. I thought you were going to get beaten to a pulp. But I’d seen where the main fuses were, so I sneaked back and turned out all the lights. Then I came looking for
you. Things got a bit dicey when the lights came back on and I had to shoot a few of the opposition and throw a couple of grenades. The last time I saw you, you were in a ferry, trying to get away. It might have helped if you’d untied it first.”

  “You shot Anan Sukit.”

  “Was that his name? Well, he was trying to shoot you. It was the very least I could do.”

  “So what is this place?” Alex looked around. “What are you doing in Bangkok? And what’s your real name? You can’t go on expecting me to call you Fox.”

  “My real name’s Ben Daniels. You’re Alex Rider. Of course, I know that now.”

  “You’ve left the SAS?”

  “I got assigned to MI6 Special Operations. And since you ask, that’s where you are now. This is what you might call the Bangkok office of the Royal and General Bank.”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when a door opened on the other side of the hallway and a woman walked into the room. Alex caught it at once…the faint smell of peppermint.

  “Alex Rider!” Mrs. Jones exclaimed. “I have to say, you’re the last person I expected to see. Come into my office immediately. I want to know—why aren’t you at school?”

  11

  ARMED AND DANGEROUS

  THE LAST TIME ALEX had seen Mrs. Jones, she had been visiting him in a North London hospital. Then she had seemed unsure of herself, regretful, blaming herself for the security lapse that had left Alex close to death on the pavement outside the MI6 offices on Liverpool Street. She had also been at her most human.

  Now she was much more like the woman he had first met, dressed severely in a slate-colored jacket and dress with a single necklace that could have been silver or steel. Her hair was tied back, and her face—with those night black eyes—was utterly serious. Mrs. Jones was not exactly attractive, but neither did she try to be. In a way, her looks exactly suited her work as head of MI6, Special Operations, one of the most secretive departments of the British secret service. They gave nothing away.