He looked up and realized with despair that he was too late. The Tige was traveling at about forty miles per hour and the first swimmers were only yards away. Alex could see the horror in their eyes as they took in what was about to happen. On the beach, sunbathers were rising out of their loungers, staring openmouthed, watching the disaster unfolding in front of them. Someone screamed. Alex could pull back the throttle, cut the engine. But even that wouldn’t help. Propelled by its own momentum, the boat would still shoot forward, its prow crashing into the swimmers before it hit the beach and stopped. People would die. He had no doubt of it at all.
In the last remaining seconds, Alex threw himself forward. Ignoring Kristof, who was still lying there unconscious, he grabbed hold of the wheel and wrenched it to one side. The prow swung around, missing the first of the swimmers by inches. There were people everywhere. Alex spun the wheel the other way, weaving through them. He heard more screams, rising even above the roar of the outboard motor. Somehow, he managed to avoid them all.
The Tige reached the beach. The shingle was right in front of him. He heard the bottom of the boat grinding against the shallows and knew that the propeller would be next. Alex pulled back on the throttle even as the metal blades came into contact with the ocean floor and shattered. He felt the whole deck shudder.
And then the entire boat had left the water. Alex was in the driving seat, on dry land, sun loungers and umbrellas on one side of him, beach towels on the other, a blur of astonished faces watching him as he shot past. At the very end, he wrenched the steering wheel one last time. There was a narrow gulley with boulders on both sides and, straight ahead, directly underneath the Promenade des Anglais, a dark tunnel with a wire fence blocking the entrance. Some sort of storm drain. The boat was slowing down, dragging against the ground. The prow hit the wire. The boat stopped.
Alex heard shouting behind him—a gabble of French voices. Quickly, he unfastened the life jacket and the harness. Someone else would look after the unconscious driver, and he had no desire to answer any questions. Before anyone could reach him, he dropped out of the boat and ran up a flight of steps leading to the main road.
He had no sooner reached the top than he saw Celestine on the other side, coming out of an ice cream shop with a cone in each hand. Alex was dripping wet. He was only wearing his swimming shorts. Fortunately, in Nice, he didn’t look out of place.
Dodging the traffic, he ran over to her.
“Alex!” She was surprised to see him. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Alex had no intention of telling her what had happened. He looked back. He had moved so fast that nobody had seen where he had gone.
“Where is your T-shirt? And your sandals?”
“They were stolen.”
“Stolen? But that is terrible!”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got more back at the house.” Alex took one of the ice cream cones. He needed something to cool him down. “Can we go home?” he asked.
“Of course. But how was the parasailing? Did you enjoy it?”
Alex glanced back one last time. He could hear the scream of an approaching ambulance. He could imagine the pandemonium on the beach. “Well,” he said, “it was certainly quite a ride.”
TEA WITH SMITHERS
I’D OFTEN WONDERED WHERE Smithers lived. The truth is, I knew almost nothing about him except that he was massively fat, he was bald with a small, almost comical mustache, and he liked to wear old-fashioned suits. He manufactured gadgets—secret weapons and so on—for MI6. And that was what he provided for me. He wasn’t allowed to give me anything lethal. I never got a gun or anything like that. But he seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in thinking up things which a teenager might have in his pockets (apart from his hands), and his inventions saved my life on more than one occasion.
Anyway, the two of us bumped into each other on Liverpool Street and he invited me to tea. He had a funny way of talking, a bit like everyone’s favorite uncle or perhaps a principal in a small private school. There were times when I thought that everything about him was a huge act, that it was all fake, but at the same time he was the only person in MI6 whom I actually trusted. He wasn’t like Mr. Blunt or Mrs. Jones or any of the others who only ever wanted to use me.
“Alex, my dear fellow!” We were standing face-to-face in the doorway of the building that pretended to be an international bank, but he was talking so loudly, I could have heard him halfway down the road. “What a delightful surprise. I hope we’re not using you again. Nobody mentioned anything to me.”
In fact, I’d just been in for a debrief. MI6 was closing their files on Dr. Grief and everything that had happened at the Point Blanc Academy, and they’d called me in to give them my version of events. Jack always hated it when I went to their offices. She was sure I wouldn’t come back. But it had been an uneventful hour, telling them about my time in Africa. I’d been quite badly burned while I was out there, but that had healed by now and my life was back—more or less—to normal. I’d been on the way to the tube station when Smithers had suddenly appeared. I was quite surprised he used the front door. He was more likely to step into a phone booth that would turn out to be a lift.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mr. Smithers,” I said.
“Not another mission?”
“No. They were just asking me about the last one.”
“Ah yes. Dr. Grief. I always thought he was a nasty piece of work.” He beamed. “In that case, why not come for tea with me? It would be nice to sit down and have a proper chin-wag.” It occurred to me that Smithers had several chins with which to do it, but of course I didn’t say that. “How about Saturday?”
“All right.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to have tea with him, but I wasn’t doing anything over the weekend, and there was a part of me that wanted to know more. I’d first met Smithers almost a year ago. I’d been involved in eight missions. But I didn’t know anything much about him. Where did he live? Did he have a house or an apartment? Did he keep animals? Was he married? Was he gay? Everyone who worked at MI6 was the same. They spent so much time living in the shadows that in the end they became shadows themselves. I had learned that Mrs. Jones had two children (although somehow she’d lost them). Mr. Blunt was married. Mr. Smithers’s first name was Derek. And that was it. That was the full extent of my knowledge.
He gave me an address in Hampstead and said it was a ten-minute walk from the tube station. The following Saturday I arrived on time, walking down through the village and taking one of the narrow lanes that twist their way toward Hampstead Heath. It turned out that Smithers lived in a mews. He had a small pink house with ivy growing up the front. There were three floors and, from the look of it, maybe six rooms. It was the sort of house that might appear in Mary Poppins, if you’ve ever seen that old film. Again, I got the feeling that there was something not quite real about it. There was a gnome standing on the tiny patch of lawn that made up the front garden. I wondered if it was watching me, connected to some sort of surveillance system. And the front doorbell. Would it blow up if I pressed it the wrong way? You never knew, where Smithers was concerned.
In fact, nothing happened for about five seconds after I’d pressed the bell button. I could imagine him heaving himself out of a chair and waddling over to the door. In fact, he didn’t appear. There was an intercom set in the brickwork and I heard his voice. “Do come in, old chap! Straight ahead . . . the room at the end.” The door opened automatically and I stepped into a home that was as old-fashioned as the outside. There was a hallway with black and white tiles, a ticking grandfather clock, antique paintings, a short corridor, a chandelier. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. It was all so ordinary. I closed the door behind me and kept walking. A second door led into a kitchen and living room that ran the full width of the house. Windows looked out onto a small garden behind.
Smithers wa
s sitting in an armchair, tucked away in an alcove. Even on his day off, he liked to wear a suit. It seemed that he hadn’t waited for me to arrive. He had a plate with three sandwiches balanced on his knee and he was sipping tea out of a porcelain cup.
“How very good to see you, Alex! Take a seat. Please help yourself. I hope you’ll find something that you like.”
Egg sandwiches, smoked salmon sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, a chocolate cake, scones and cream, fruit, nuts, freshly made lemonade and tea . . . There was actually enough for half a dozen people, piled up on a table in front of me. I sat down in the seat opposite Smithers and poured myself some tea. Part of me was wishing that I hadn’t come. The house was like a theater set. It wasn’t like anywhere I imagined Smithers would live. I got the sense that something was wrong, but I couldn’t work out quite what it was.
“So how are you?” Smithers asked. “I heard you nearly got killed in France.”
“I was lucky,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about the chase down the mountain or my near collision with a speeding train.
“Did my exploding ear stud come in useful?”
“I wasn’t crazy about the look,” I said. “But it got me out of a lot of trouble.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Suddenly Smithers was serious. “You know, I do have grave misgivings about MI6 using you,” he said. “It’s probably illegal and it’s certainly immoral. The trouble is, you’re too damned useful. You ought to try being less successful.”
“If I was less successful, I’d be dead,” I said.
“Yes. You have a point. But even so, it was very wrong of your uncle, Ian Rider, to drag you into our world.” He glanced at me disapprovingly. “Do please help yourself,” he said. “Have an egg sandwich. I used to love egg sandwiches when I was a boy, especially when they were cut into triangles. I’m not quite sure why, but they taste better that shape.”
“How did you get into MI6?” I asked. I did as I was told and took a couple of sandwiches.
“You shouldn’t ask questions like that, Alex. You know we’re not allowed to talk about ourselves.” Smithers raised his cup and sipped his tea noisily. His fingers were so plump, they wouldn’t fit through the handle. He had to pinch it to keep it in place. “I once asked Alan Blunt what he’d got up to at the weekend and he almost had me arrested as a double agent.” Smithers laughed to himself, then set the cup down. “But I can trust you, I suppose. I got into MI6 because of my grandfather Major Arthur Smithers.”
“Was he a spy too?”
“Not exactly. He was in the SOE during the war. I don’t suppose you’ve learned about that in school—”
“The SOE.” In fact, we had read about it in history lessons. “The Special Operations Executive.”
“That’s right. You got it in one!” Smithers was clearly pleased. “Formed in July 1940. It was just after Dunkirk. The French were finished. The Nazis were everywhere. It looked as if we’d pretty much lost the war. So Churchill formed a special unit and famously told them to ‘set Europe ablaze.’ That was the SOE. A lot of people didn’t like them, you know, Alex—because they got up to all sorts of dirty tricks. But Churchill understood. It was a time of crisis. If we were going to win the war, we had to stop behaving like gentlemen.
“Anyway, my grandfather went to work for Station Nine, which specialized in gadgets and secret weapons. One of his earliest ideas was the exploding rat.”
I couldn’t help smiling. I wasn’t sure if Smithers was joking or not.
“I’m absolutely serious! It was a rat with a bomb in it. One of our agents would leave it on the floor in a German factory and someone would come along, pick it up, and throw it in the furnace. And . . . boom!” Smithers gestured with his teacup, sending tea flying onto the arm of his chair. “They also hid bombs in camel droppings. The Germans would drive over them in their armored vehicles with the same result. The SOE had lots and lots of superb ideas. There was a fountain pen that shot out tear gas. A dagger hidden inside a pencil. A one-man submarine that they tested in the reservoir in Staines. Exploding bicycle pumps, radio transmitters disguised as sewing machines . . . They never stopped!
“After the war, old Arthur used to tell me all these stories and I was absolutely fascinated. Apparently he worked on super-strength itching powder, which he planned to put into the Germans’ underpants. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear to you, it’s absolutely true. You can check the history books! I was quite a small boy, but I began to experiment myself. I had a cousin who used to bully me all the time and the first gadget I ever created was specially for him. It was on his birthday cake. It was rather naughty of me, but I’m afraid I mixed potassium chlorate with the candles. It’s a highly efficient oxidizing agent and it reacted with the sugar in the icing. The result was a disaster. Instead of the birthday boy blowing out the candles, the candles blew out the birthday boy. His parents weren’t at all amused.
“I also got quite a name for myself at school. I was sent to an absolutely horrible place down on the coast, and I’d only been there one week when I was caught trying to post myself back home. When that didn’t work, I started making gadgets just to keep myself amused. I managed to speed up all the clocks so we got shorter lessons, and I was very pleased when I smuggled a mobile telephone into the end-of-term exams.”
“I’d have thought anyone could do that,” I said.
“Well, yes,” Smithers agreed. “But this was ten years before mobile phones were invented. After school I studied physics and chemistry at Cambridge University and I got one hundred percent on my final exams. Unfortunately, the authorities found out that I’d x-rayed the questions a week before.”
“What did they do?”
“They recommended me to MI6. That was how I got the job. I’ve been there ever since, and I have to say, I was getting quite bored until you came along. It’s all very well making guns, knives, poison pills, and that sort of thing, but I find it much more fun making gadgets for you. Exploding bubble gum, infared goggles, the motorized yo-yo . . . You must admit, we’ve had some jolly times together.”
Jolly times? Smithers was always smiling when he handed out his latest gadgets, but I wasn’t often smiling when I used them. I was too busy trying to stay alive.
“As a matter of fact, there’s a brand-new gadget in front of you right now.” Smithers leaned forward, challenging me. I could see the reflection of the light dancing in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Exactly what I say. You’ve got to remember, Alex, at the end of the day my job is to disguise things. For example, take the Nintendo DS I gave you when you went off to deal with Herod Sayle. It was a smoke bomb. It was a bug finder. It had all sorts of uses, but the main thing was . . . it was invisible. Sayle saw it but he didn’t look twice. And that’s the point. Not every gadget I make is a weapon, but it’s always designed to deceive. Right now you’re looking at my latest invention, but you’re not seeing it—which is the proof, I suppose, that it works.”
What was he talking about? I was looking at something. I thought it was ordinary. But it wasn’t. It was a gadget. What could it be?
Very carefully, I examined everything.
The tea. Sandwiches cut into triangles, the scones, the cake. They could all have been drugged or poisoned, although why would Smithers want to do me harm? The cake could have all the ingredients of a bomb. For all I knew, the icing could be plastic explosive.
“It’s not the food,” Smithers said. He placed his cup on the table beside him. It made no sound. He was watching me closely.
What else? There was a small yellow teapot on the table. I unscrewed the lid. It contained only tea. I widened my search. What about the table itself? It was round, wooden. It looked antique. I reached out and ran a finger along the edge, looking for the telltale hole that might fire a bullet or an anesthetic dart.
“You’re not
even close,” Smithers said.
He was sitting in a high-backed chair with two arms that curved around like scrolls. Press a button and the whole thing might blast off into the air—but he had nowhere to go. He had his back to the wall and the ceiling curved over his head. A single spotlight illuminated him, and now that I thought about it, there was something quite theatrical about the way he presented himself. But as far as I could see, the light was ordinary. There was a picture on one wall. It looked like an oil painting, a cornfield, but I remembered visiting Smithers’s office on the eleventh floor of MI6. There had been a painting that had started moving even as I examined it . . . It was actually a plasma screen connected to a live satellite somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. And for that matter, there had been a communications system hidden in the potted plant. I got up and went over to the picture. I ran a finger over the surface.
“It’s not the picture.”
I was beginning to get annoyed. Smithers was still sitting there. In fact he hadn’t left the chair since I had come in. He was looking very smug, one leg crossed over the other. I noticed he was wearing bright red socks. “All right, Mr. Smithers,” I said. “You win. Whatever your latest invention is, I can’t see it.”
Smithers laughed. “I owe you an apology, Alex. I really wanted to have tea with you, but in the end it wasn’t possible.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mrs. Jones sent me to Singapore. A last-minute assignment. I’m there now.”
“Wait . . .”
“Let yourself out, old chap. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.” Smithers reached out and pressed something I couldn’t see. A second later, he flickered and disappeared. So did the chair he’d been sitting in.
That was when I realized he’d never been there. I’d been having tea with a hologram. I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or amused. But at least the cake was real. I took it home for Jack.
Alex Rider--Secret Weapon Page 15
