Snakehead

by Anthony Horowitz

  “You remind me of that boy I mentioned—Crispin Odey,” Yu replied. “He learned how unwise it was to annoy me and so, Alex, will you.”

  He poured himself another glass of wine.

  “I was forced to leave active service, but that was not the end of my career. I still had an excellent mind, and I was recommended for a job in intelligence…in MI6. That’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think? In other circumstances, you and I could have been working together. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t quite work out that way.

  “You see, at first I thought that it was all going to be very exciting. I imagined myself as quite the young James Bond. But I was never invited to be part of Special Operations like you, Alex. I never met anyone senior like Alan Blunt or Mrs. Jones. I was sent to the communications center at Cheltenham. It was a desk job! Can you imagine someone like me slaving away from nine to five in a boring little office, surrounded by secretaries and coffee machines? It was miserable. And all the time I knew that my disease was getting worse and that it was only a matter of time before I would be thrown out and put on the scrap heap.

  “And so I decided to look out for myself. Despite everything, a lot of the information that passed my way at Cheltenham was highly sensitive and confidential. And of course there was a market for this sort of material. So, very carefully, I began to steal secrets from British intelligence—and guess where I took them! I went to the very snakehead that had employed my mother when she was in Hong Kong. They were delighted to have me, and quite soon I was being paid quite handsomely for my services.

  “In the end I had to resign from MI6. The snakehead was paying me a fortune and they were offering me all sorts of career opportunities very quickly. I rose up the ladder until—by the early eighties—I had become number two in what was now the most powerful criminal organization in Southeast Asia.”

  “And I suppose number one fell off a roof,” Alex said.

  “As a matter of fact, he drowned…but you seem to have got the general idea.” Yu smiled. “Anyway, it was about this time that I heard rumors of a new organization that was being formed by people who were, in their own way, quite similar to me. I decided to diversify and, using my snakehead connections, I managed to contact them and eventually we met up in Paris to finalize details. That, of course, was the birth of Scorpia and I was one of the founding members.”

  “So what are you doing now? Why do you need Royal Blue?”

  Major Yu had been helping himself to cheese. He stopped with a piece of cheddar on the end of his knife. “You saw the bomb?” he asked.

  Alex said nothing. There was no point in denying it.

  “You really are a very capable young man, Alex. I see now that we were quite unwise to underestimate you last time.” Major Yu dropped the cheese onto his plate and reached for a cookie. “I’m going to tell you what the bomb is for because it will amuse me,” he went on. “But then I’m afraid you must be on your way.” He looked at his watch. “The plane will be here any minute.”

  “Where am I going, Major Yu?”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute. Cheese?”

  “Do you have any Brie?”

  “Personally, I find French cheese disgusting.” He ate silently for a moment. “There is an island in the Timor Sea, not very far from here, in fact. Its name is Reef Island. You may have heard of it.”

  Alex remembered the newscast he had heard on board the Liberian Star. A conference was taking place there. The alternative to the G8 summit. A meeting of famous people who were trying to make the world a better place.

  “Scorpia has been given the job of destroying the island and the eight so-called celebrities who will be on it,” Yu went on. He was sounding pleased with himself. Alex imagined that must be one of the problems of being a criminal. You could never find anyone to tell about your crimes. “But what makes the task particularly interesting is that we have to make it look like an accident.”

  “So you’re going to blow them up,” Alex said.

  “No, no, no, Alex. That wouldn’t work at all. We have to be much more subtle. Let me explain.” He swallowed a piece of cheese and dabbed his lips with his napkin. “As it happens, Reef Island is located in what is known as a subduction zone. Perhaps you’ve studied that in geography. What it means is that underneath the sea, a few hundred miles north of the island, there are two tectonic plates pushing against each other with a fault line between them.

  “Among its many business interests, the Chada Trading Agency is involved in deep-sea oil exploration and leases an oil platform in the Timor Sea. In the last couple of months, I have arranged for a shaft to be driven into the seabed, precisely over the fault line. This was quite a feat of engineering, Alex. We used the same reverse circulation system that was developed to build the ventilation shafts for the Hong Kong subway. I’m delighted to say that it was designed by Seacore, a British company…once again, one step ahead of the world.

  “Normally, the pipe running down from the rig would be no more than five inches in diameter by the time it hit the oil field. However, our shaft will have ample room for Royal Blue. We will place the bomb half a mile below the surface of the seabed. I will then travel to the oil platform and personally detonate it…”

  But what was the point? Alex went through what he had just been told, and suddenly he understood. He knew exactly what the result would be. Not just an explosion. Something much, much worse. He couldn’t keep the horror out of his voice. “You’re going to cause a wave,” he said. “A huge wave…”

  “Go on, Alex.” Yu couldn’t keep the glee out of his voice.

  “A tsunami…” Alex whispered the word.

  He could see it clearly. That was what had happened on December 26, 2004. An earthquake underneath the sea. A tsunami that had hit first Sumatra, then the coast of Somalia. More than two hundred thousand people had died.

  “Exactly. The bomb will have the effect of lubricating the fault line.” Yu rested one hand on top of the other. “This will force one of the plates to rise.” He lifted the upper hand a few inches. “The result will be a deep water wave, just one yard high. You wouldn’t think it could do much harm. But as it approaches the coastline, where the seabed begins to rise, the front will slow down and the rest of the water will pile up behind. By the time it hits Reef Island, a one-hundred-foot wall of water will have formed, traveling at about five hundred miles an hour…the speed of a jumbo jet. One cubic yard of water weighs about one ton, Alex. Imagine hundreds of cubic yards rushing in. There will be no warning. The island will be destroyed utterly. It is low-lying. There will be nowhere to hide. Every building will be smashed. Every single person on the island will be killed.”

  “But the tsunami won’t stop there!” Alex exclaimed. “What will happen to it after that?”

  “That’s a very intelligent observation. No. The tsunami will unleash the same amount of energy as several thousand nuclear weapons. It will continue on its way until it hits the coast of Australia. We’ll be all right up here in Darwin, but I’m afraid a very large section of the western coast will disappear. Everything from Derby to Carnavon. Fortunately, there’s nowhere very important or even attractive in that part of the country. Broome, Port Headland…few people have even heard of these places. And they’re not exactly overpopulated. I wouldn’t expect more than about ten or twenty thousand people to die. A small price to pay for a job well done.”

  “But I don’t understand…” Alex could feel his chest tightening. “You’re going to do all this just to kill eight people?”

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said. Their deaths have to look accidental. Our job is to make the world forget that this stupid conference ever took place. And so we will provide a natural disaster on a massive scale. Who will care about the extinction of eight people when the number of deaths rises into the thousands? Who will remember a little island when an entire continent has been hit?”

  “But they’ll know it was you! They’ll know it was all st
arted with a bomb.”

  “That would be true if we used a nuclear bomb. There is an international network of seismographs. The Poseidon satellite in outer space. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. And so on. But the blast made by Royal Blue won’t register. It will be lost as the tectonic plates shift and the devastation begins.”

  Alex tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He had been sent to uncover a smuggling operation, and somehow instead he had stumbled into this terrible nightmare…another attempt by Scorpia to change the world. He had to stop himself from glancing at his watch. Several hours had passed since he had set the hands to eleven o’clock. Surely MI6 were on their way. Why weren’t they already here?

  “I expect you’re wondering whether such a relatively small bomb will really be able to cause such havoc,” Major Yu continued. “Well, there is one other thing you need to know. As luck would have it, in three days’ time, a rather special event is taking place. I’m afraid I don’t know the astronomical term for it, but what we’re talking about is the alignment of three celestial bodies—the sun, the moon, and the earth. And the moon is going to be particularly close. At midnight, in fact, it will be as close as it ever is.

  “As a result, there will be a particularly strong gravitational pull on the earth’s surface. I’m sorry, Alex. I’m beginning to sound like a schoolteacher. Let me put it more simply. The sun will be pulling one way. The moon will be pulling the other. And for just one hour, from midnight, the tectonic plate will be at its most volatile. A single explosion will be more than enough to begin the process I have described. Royal Blue is the perfect weapon for our needs. Undetectable. Invisible. And above all, British.”

  Yu fell silent, and in that moment Alex heard the drone of a plane. He looked out the window and saw it circling. It was a seaplane, a tiny two-seater with floats instead of wheels. It could land on the sea right outside the house and tie up on the jetty that Alex had seen from his room. He knew it had come for him.

  “Where are you taking me?” he demanded.

  “Ah, yes. Now we come to the rub.” Major Yu had finished eating. He sat back and suddenly the gun was in his hand, pointing at Alex. He had certainly moved quickly. Alex hadn’t even seen him draw it. “The easiest and perhaps the most sensible thing would be to shoot you now,” he said. “In half an hour you could be at the bottom of the ocean, and neither Mrs. Jones nor Mr. Ethan Brooke would ever know what had happened to you.

  “But I’m not going to do that. Why? For two reasons. The first is that I really don’t want to get blood on the carpet. You may have noticed that it’s an Axminster—from the town of Axminster in Devonshire. The second is more personal. You owe me a great deal of money, Alex. You have to pay for the damage you did on the Liberian Star. There is still the rather more considerable debt that you owe to Scorpia following the collapse of Invisible Sword. And the truth is that although you may not realize it, right now you are worth a great deal to me alive.

  “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.

  17

  SPARE PARTS

  THE 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.