And armed. The chain was known as a manriki kusari, and in the hands of a ninja warrior it was said to have ten thousand uses. The word man means “ten thousand” in ancient Japanese. The weapon that Alex was holding had a handle at each end. It was like a steel skipping rope. But Skoda’s sword was even more lethal. It had left a deep gouge in the floor. If Alex hadn’t rolled away in time, he would have lost his arm.
“That’s not going to help you,” Skoda said. He was juggling with the sword, looking for an opening. “Put that down and I might make it easier for you.”
“Why don’t we talk about this?” Alex had no intention of giving up his weapon. He gripped it more tightly. At the same time, he was still waiting for someone to come. Surely Mr. Kydd or Miss Maxwell would have noticed he was missing?
“We’ve talked enough!”
Skoda edged forward and then everything happened in a blur. Skoda attacked, jabbing forward with the tip of the sword. Alex avoided it easily. He was fitter, faster, and lighter on his feet than Skoda, who still hadn’t completely recovered from his broken bones. Skoda missed. Alex swung the chain. There was a great thud as it made contact with Skoda’s hip. Skoda howled and fell to one side. That left the entrance free. Alex made for it. Six steps and he’d be out of the room. He wouldn’t stop running until he had reached the ground floor and found someone to help him. But for once in his life he was unlucky. His foot came down on the blowpipe that had fallen out of the case. He felt it roll beneath him, and before he could stop himself, he had lost his balance and once again crashed down to the floor. The chain was knocked out of his hand. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back, unarmed, and Skoda was standing over him, holding the sword in both hands.
“Not quite so clever anymore, are you?” Skoda giggled. “This is where it ends, Alex Rider. Shall we do it slowly or shall we do it quickly? Which bit of you shall we cut first?”
“Look behind you, Skoda,” Alex said. He could taste blood. He must have bitten his tongue as he fell. “We’re not alone.”
“You think I’m going to fall for that one again?”
“He’s telling the truth.”
The voice had come from the door. Skoda spun around, his eyes widening in shock. Miss Maxwell was standing there, her blond hair hanging loose and something deadly in her eyes. Alex realized that she wasn’t wearing her glasses anymore. She didn’t need them. Perhaps she never had. There was a gun in her hand and Alex was as surprised to see it as Skoda.
“Put the sword down and step aside,” she ordered. “I’m telling you now, and I won’t give you a second warning.” The strange thing was, her voice was exactly the same as when she had been telling him off for running in the corridor.
“Wait a minute, lady—” Skoda’s voice was a whine, but he lowered the sword.
“Are you all right, Alex?”
That was her mistake. In the moment that she looked at him, she had taken her eyes off Skoda, and that was when he swung the sword . . . not at Alex, but at her. She fired and Skoda spun around, screaming. He had been hit in the shoulder. But the teacher hadn’t escaped injury either. The tip of his sword had cut through her gray jacket, drawing blood. Alex heard her gasp. Skoda barreled forward, shoving her aside. And then he was gone, out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.
5
“I’M SORRY,” MISS MAXWELL said. “That was clumsy of me. Mrs. Jones won’t be pleased.”
She had examined the wound made by the sword. Fortunately, it wasn’t very deep. She seemed more annoyed about the damage to her jacket.
“You work for MI6?” Alex asked.
The substitute teacher nodded. She took out her phone and pressed the speed dial. “This is Maxwell. I’m at the V and A. Subject was here but he managed to get away. You’d better hand over to the police.” Quickly she added a description of Skoda, what he had been wearing. “Alex is unhurt,” she added. “I’m with him now.”
“What exactly is going on?” Alex asked when she’d hung up.
“Jake Edwards escaped from jail a few days ago,” she explained. Alex had never actually known Skoda’s real name. “Mrs. Jones was worried he might come looking for you, so she sent me to keep an eye out.”
“That’s very nice of her.” But Alex knew that being nice had nothing to do with it. He looked around him. Here he was in an exhibition called Seven Hundred Years of War, but in a way he wasn’t just visiting. He was part of it and had been ever since his uncle had died. MI6 had made him their secret weapon. They had put him into a glass case of their own, and they were the ones with the key. Miss Maxwell had been sent here to protect him because he was valuable to them. That was all it came down to.
“I noticed you weren’t with the rest of the group when we reached the exit,” she continued. “So I came back to look for you.”
“So what happens now?” Alex asked.
“You heard me say on the phone. Edwards has no money and nowhere to go. He has a bullet in him. He’s not going to be difficult to find. We need to get you back home. And of course, nobody else from Brookland must know what happened.”
Alex understood why that was important. He was only useful to MI6 while nobody knew about him. “Where is everyone?” he asked.
“They’re in the reception hall with Mr. Kydd. He’s waiting to take everyone back to the tube station.”
“Are you going to be all right?”
Miss Maxwell flexed her shoulder. “I’ll get the medic to take a look at it when I’m back. I’m still annoyed. I allowed myself to be distracted. And I should have aimed at his head!” She put her jacket back on. “It’s such a great pleasure to meet you, Alex,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you—and that business with Colonel Sarov really was extraordinary.”
Alex tried not to think too much about it. Sometimes, at night, he was woken up by the sound of gunfire, shattering his dreams.
“I know Mr. Blunt thinks very highly of you,” she continued. “By the way, I’m sorry I had to tell you off for running in the corridor.”
“I’ll try not to do it again,” Alex said.
His cell phone rang. He took it out and looked at the display. The call was from Tom Harris. “Alex,” Tom began.
Even that single word told Alex that, somehow, trouble had returned. There was a gasp at the other end as the phone was torn away and then he heard Skoda’s voice, ugly and excited. “I have your friend,” he said. “Your best friend.”
“What do you want?” Alex demanded.
“You know what I want. Is it going to be you or is it going to be him? If you want to see him again, come back to where we first met. You know where I mean. I’ll send you a signal. You’ll see where I am. Come alone. Come unarmed. If I see anyone with you or if I believe anyone is with you, your little friend is going to have a horrible time. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“You have thirty minutes. After that, it’ll be too late.”
The phone went dead.
“Who was that?” Miss Maxwell asked.
Alex hesitated. He should tell her. If Skoda had snatched Tom, she would find out soon enough anyway. She could summon MI6. They could send in cars, helicopters . . . the works. But at the first sign of trouble, Tom Harris would die. Skoda had nothing to live for. He had said as much already. And would MI6 care too much about the death of an unknown schoolboy? They were interested in Alex. No one else.
“It was Jack,” he said. “She was wondering when I’d get back.” He leaned down and brushed a piece of broken glass off his sneaker.
“You’d better join the others. I’ll wait here and talk to the museum authorities. We’re going to have to explain all this damage.”
“Thanks, Miss Maxwell.”
Alex hurried up the stairs, but he avoided the main reception hall, where Mr. Kydd and the others would be waiting. Instead, he sli
pped out one of the side doors. It was early evening and the sky was beginning to darken. The rush-hour traffic was heavy, thundering down the main road. Alex didn’t wait for the lights to turn red. He dodged between the cars, ignoring the horns as different drivers jammed on their brakes to let him pass. Skoda had given him thirty minutes. He didn’t intend to be late.
6
IT WAS SO STRANGE to be back in Putney. It felt as if years had passed since he had sneaked onto the building site close to the River Thames—his first encounter with Skoda. In fact, it had been a matter of weeks. He saw the wooden jetty jutting out into the river. That was where Blue Shadow had been moored, but it was empty now, the brown water churning sluggishly past. And there was the brand-new conference center that he had accidentally destroyed when he dropped the boat. It was covered in scaffolding now. They were building a new roof. The building site was exactly as he remembered it. They hadn’t done a great deal of building since the last time he was here. Alex guessed that the arrest of Skoda, the police inquiry, and the confusion surrounding what had happened would have slowed things down. The area was still surrounded by a tall wire fence with a gate giving access from Richmond Road. The gate should have been locked. It was hanging open.
Alex had run down from Putney Bridge tube station. He still had five or six minutes in hand, but he moved warily, looking around him. The clouds had closed in and darkness had come quickly. Skoda could be anywhere. There were half-built walls, scaffolding towers, deep trenches, and vehicles parked all over the compound. Alex examined the mechanical diggers, the bulldozers, the compactors. In the hands of a maniac, any one of them could become a weapon as dangerous as those he had seen in the V and A. Where was Skoda? He thought about calling out to Tom but decided against it. He didn’t want to put the other boy in any more danger than he was already in.
He saw something out of the corner of his eye. A light had blinked on and off: a flashlight. Where was it? The beam flashed a second time and Alex looked up, his eyes traveling to the control cabin of a crane that loomed high over him, in the very center of the building site. He waited a moment to be sure. Yes. There it was. Skoda knew exactly what he was doing. This was the same crane that Alex had climbed when he had followed the drug dealer to his river hideaway. He had sat in the control cabin and used the two joysticks to hook Blue Shadow and lift it out of the water like some fantastic arcade game. Well, Skoda had invited him back. The fight was going to end exactly where it had begun.
Alex knew he was being watched. He was in full view of Skoda and he guessed that Tom would be up there with him too. He hadn’t enjoyed climbing the crane the first time: a metal tower with three hundred rungs and nothing to stop you if you lost your grip and fell. This time it was worse. Skoda was waiting and Alex knew exactly what he intended to do. Would he be armed? Alex was fairly sure that Skoda didn’t have a gun, but he had taken the samurai sword with him when he escaped from the museum and he would certainly have it with him now. As Alex took hold of the first rung and began to climb up, he found himself thinking of Miss Maxwell. She’d saved his life, but he was still annoyed with her. If only she’d been a better shot!
The ground was disappearing behind him, the vehicles and building equipment getting smaller and smaller. Just to add to his troubles, it had begun to rain, a thin drizzle that stung his face and the backs of his hands and made the rungs slippery. Part of him wondered if he was doing the right thing. Maybe he should have told Miss Maxwell the truth and let MI6 deal with it. No. Tom was his best friend. Skoda must have seen the two of them together when they were in the schoolyard. This was his fault. He would deal with it.
His arms were aching. His clothes were damp. His hair hung down in his eyes. But finally he reached the top, two hundred yards above ground level. He was effectively in the middle of a gigantic T. The cubicle with the controls was right in front of him, but there was no one inside and the door seemed to be locked. Over to the left, he could make out the massive concrete blocks that kept the whole thing balanced. Looking the other way, he saw the operating arm stretching out into the darkness with the hook hanging below. There were two figures waiting for him about halfway down. Tom Harris was on his knees. Skoda was standing over him with the sword pointed at his neck.
Alex looked down. The ground was a long way below, the drizzle hanging, suspended, in the air. Skoda was about four or five yards away. To reach him, Alex would have to walk along the arm, steel struts crisscrossing each other and wide gaps beneath his feet. Worse still, the safety railings along each side only came up to his thigh. It was hardly safe at all. If he slipped, he could all too easily fall over the edge. And that, of course, was exactly what Skoda wanted to happen. Preferably after Alex had been stabbed.
“So you came!” Skoda said. It was as if he couldn’t believe his luck.
“That’s right, Skoda. I came.” Alex examined the other man. He was in a bad way. Miss Maxwell had shot him high up in the shoulder and his shirt was hanging off him, already made damp by the rain and saturated with blood. Shock and pain were distorting his face. His eyes were wide. His skin had no color at all. It was extraordinary, really, that he was still conscious.
Meanwhile, Tom was slumped in front of him, refusing to look up. He was crying. Now that Alex was closer, he could hear the boy gasping for breath. Everything about him suggested that he was terrified.
“I’m here now,” Alex said. “So you can let him go.”
“I’ll let him go when you’re dead!” Skoda almost screamed the words. “I want to see you jump. That’s how it works. You do what I say or I’ll cut off his head . . . I swear to you.”
“Alex!” Tom sobbed. “He grabbed me at the museum. He made me come here.”
“It’s all right, Tom.” Alex looked Skoda in the eyes. “How do I know I can trust you? Let him go first. Then it’ll just be you and me.”
“I don’t care about him. It’s you I want. Climb over now. Do it or watch your friend die.”
“Alex . . . !” Tom was wailing like a little child.
“Now!” Skoda tightened his grip on the sword.
And then everything happened at once.
Tom suddenly straightened up, slamming his fist hard between Skoda’s legs. Skoda gasped and doubled up in pain. Alex knew that Tom had been faking the tears. His friend was a brilliant actor and there was no way he would have allowed a thug like Skoda to humiliate him. And Alex had been waiting for exactly this moment. Even as he had talked, his hand had been behind him, searching in his back pocket for the weapon that he had concealed there. It was one of the five-pointed stars, the ninja shuriken, that had fallen out of the display case back at the museum. With a single movement, he took it out and threw it. The star didn’t have very far to travel. It spun through the air and buried itself in Skoda’s hand. Skoda screamed and dropped the sword. The sword slipped through one of the gaps in the floor and disappeared.
With a noise that was more animal than human, Skoda threw himself at Alex, half tripping over Tom. Somehow his hands found Alex’s throat. For a moment the two of them were close together and Alex saw the man grimacing at him with his dark gap where his front teeth should have been. Tom got to his feet and threw himself at Skoda. At the same time, Alex lashed out and felt Skoda’s hands lose their grip. That was when Skoda lost his balance. He let out a final whimper and toppled to one side. The railing wasn’t high enough to save him. He plunged into the darkness.
Neither boy watched him as he fell. It seemed to take a long time before the sound of his body thudding into the gravel came from far below. At almost exactly the same moment, they heard police sirens. Tom pointed. There were two police cars tearing across Putney Bridge. They came around the corner and began to follow the road down toward the building site. Alex guessed that Miss Maxwell must have finally noticed that they were missing and called them in.
Tom was soaking wet. His hair was plastered over his foreh
ead. It took him a few moments to recover from what had just happened. “So what was all that about?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Alex said. He had decided at once that he would have to lie. Nobody at Brookland, not even Tom, could know the truth.
“He didn’t seem to like you,” Tom said.
“He certainly wasn’t very friendly,” Alex agreed.
The police cars had arrived at the foot of the crane, their lights flashing blue and white across the yard. A few of the policemen were already searching for Tom and Alex. The others were examining the broken doll that had once been Skoda.
The two boys began the climb down.
HIGH TENSION
IT WAS ANOTHER PERFECT day in the South of France. Once again, the mistral—that irritating wind that pokes in from the northwest—had decided to stay away and the sky was a dazzling blue. In London, the summer had gotten off to its usual shaky start. It was pouring with rain, and with Wimbledon just a week away, everyone was watching the forecasts with a mixture of gloom and resignation. But the French Riviera, the famous Côte d’Azur, knew nothing of that. Here the sun rose early, shone all day, and only crept behind the horizon reluctantly and with the promise that it would soon return.
Alex Rider stood on the terrace of the villa at Mont Boron, just outside Nice. From here he had a stunning view of the entire bay, with the beaches of the Promenade des Anglais sweeping around in a great curve that reached all the way to the airport at the far end. Even as he watched, a private jet took off, tiny in the distance, rising steeply before banking left, corkscrewing up into the sky: some billionaire returning home. It was a reminder that tomorrow, he, too, would be on his way back to England. The visit would be over all too quickly.
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