Skeleton Key

by Anthony Horowitz

  Alex gasped for breath. The world swam back into focus. “What an attractive man,” he muttered.

  Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, then staggered over to the handrail where he had been chained. He propped himself against it, no longer able to stand without its support. There was a burst of gunfire, longer and more powerful than any that had gone before. A helicopter had appeared, flying in low over the sea. He saw an airman sitting in the open doorway, his legs dangling, a huge gun cradled in his lap. One of Sarov’s trucks was blown off its wheels, twisted over twice and exploded in flames.

  The bomb…

  Alex could work out what was happening here later. Nobody would be safe until the bomb was defused. His throat was still burning. It took all his strength to draw breath. But now he ran forward and climbed into the crane. He had operated a crane before. He knew it couldn’t be too difficult. He reached out and took the controls. At the same moment, one of Sarov’s men fired at him. The bullet clanged against the metal casing of the cabin. Alex ducked instinctively and pulled a lever.

  The magnetic disc stopped and swung in the air with Conrad stuck beneath it like a broken doll. Alex pushed forward and it began to drop down into the sea. No! That wasn’t what he wanted. He pulled the lever back and it stopped abruptly. How did you turn off the magnet? Alex looked around him and saw a switch. He pressed it. A light came on over his head. Wrong switch! There was a button set in the control stick he was holding and he tried that. At once, Conrad fell free. He plunged into the grey, freezing water and sank immediately. With all the metal inside him, Alex thought, it was hardly surprising.

  He pulled the control stick towards him and the magnet rose again. A soldier ran across the quay towards him. There was a burst of fire from the helicopter and the man fell down and lay still. Now … concentrate! Alex tried a second lever and this time the magnet began its return journey over to the submarine. It seemed to take for ever. Alex was only partly aware of the battle still raging all around him. It seemed that the Russian authorities had arrived in force. Sarov’s men were heavily out-numbered but were still fighting back. They knew they had nothing to lose.

  The magnet reached the submarine. Alex dropped it towards the silver chest, remembering how delicately it had been done by Conrad. He was less skilled – and winced as the heavy disc smashed into the top. Damn! He would set the thing off himself if he wasn’t careful. He pressed the button in the control stick a second time and actually felt the magnet come alive and knew that the nuclear bomb was in its grip. He pulled back, lifting the magnetic hoist. The silver chest came clear of the submarine.

  Now, a centimetre at a time, he swung the arm of the crane over the water, bringing the nuclear bomb back towards the harbour. A second bullet slammed into the crane and the window shattered right next to his head. Alex cried out. Glass fragments showered over him. He thought he was going to be blinded. But when he next looked up, the nuclear bomb was over the quay and he knew that he was nearly finished.

  He lowered it. At the very moment it touched the ground, there was another explosion, louder and closer than any that had gone before. But it wasn’t nuclear. One of the warehouses had shattered. Another was on fire. A second helicopter had arrived and it was strafing the ground, whipping dust and debris into the air. It was hard to be sure, but Alex thought that Sarov’s men were losing ground. There seemed to be less return fire. Well, in a few more seconds, it wouldn’t matter. All he had to do was retrieve the plastic card.

  He pulled the magnet clear, jumped from the crane, then ran over to the chest. He could see the card, half protruding from the slot where Sarov had inserted it. The lights were still blinking, the numbers spinning. There was less gunfire around him now. Looking over his shoulder, he saw more men in blue edging slowly into the compound, coming in from all sides. He reached down and pulled out the card. The lights on the nuclear bomb went out. The numbers disappeared. He had done it!

  “Put it back.”

  The words were softly spoken but each one dripped menace. Alex looked up and saw Sarov in front of him. Somehow he must have learned that the compound was under attack and had made his way back. How much time had passed since the two of them had last faced each other? Thirty minutes? An hour? However long it had been, Sarov had changed. He was smaller, shrunken. The light in his eyes had gone out and what little colour there had been in his skin seemed to have become muddied. He had been wounded fighting his way back into the harbour. There was a rip in his jacket and a slowly spreading red stain. His left hand hung useless.

  But his right hand was holding a gun.

  “It’s over, General,” Alex said. “Conrad is dead. The Russian army is here. Someone must have tipped them off.”

  Sarov shook his head. “I can still detonate the bomb. There is an override. You and I will die. But the end result will be the same.”

  “A better world?”

  “That’s all I ever wanted, Alex. All of this…! I was only ever doing what I believed in.”

  Alex felt an enormous tiredness creeping up on him. He weighed the card in his hand. It was strange really. From one Skeleton Key to another. It all came down to this.

  Sarov raised the gun. The blood was spreading more rapidly now. He swayed on his feet. “Give me the card or I will shoot you,” he said.

  Alex lifted the card then suddenly flicked it. It spun twice in the air, then disappeared into the water. “Go ahead then, if that’s what you want,” he said. “Shoot me!”

  Sarov’s eyes flickered over to the lost card, then back to Alex. “Why…?” he whispered.

  “I’d rather be dead than have a father like you,” Alex said.

  There were voices shouting. Footsteps coming nearer.

  “Goodbye, Alex,” Sarov said.

  He raised the gun and fired a single shot.

  AFTER ALEX

  “We’ve lost Alex Rider,” Mrs Jones said. “I’m sorry, Alan. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear. But that’s the end of it.”

  The head of MI6 Special Operations and his number two were having lunch together in a restaurant near Liverpool Street Station. They ate there frequently, although not often together. The restaurant was in a basement with low, vaulted ceilings, soft lighting and bare brick walls. Blunt liked the starched white tablecloths and the old-fashioned service. Also, the food was poor so few people came there. That was useful when he wanted to have a conversation such as this.

  “Alex did very well,” he muttered.

  “Oh yes. I had an email from Joe Byrne in Virginia. Of course, he was upset about the loss of his own two agents in the underwater cave, but he was full of praise for Alex. He definitely owes us a favour … which will at least be useful in the future.” She took a bread roll and broke it in half. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the CIA didn’t start training their own teenage spy now. The Americans are always copying our ideas.”

  “When we’re not copying theirs,” Blunt remarked.

  “That’s true.”

  They paused as the waiter came over with the first course. Grilled sardines for Mrs Jones, soup for Blunt. Neither dish looked particularly appetizing but that didn’t matter. Neither of them had much of an appetite.

  “I’ve looked through the files and I think I have the general picture,” Blunt said. “But perhaps you can fill me in on some of the details. In particular, I’d like to know how the Russian authorities found out about Sarov in time.”

  “That was because of what happened at Edinburgh Airport,” Mrs Jones explained. She looked down at her plate. There were four sardines lying side by side, complete with heads and tails. If it was possible for a fish to look unhappy, these had managed it. She squeezed lemon over them. The juice formed tears beneath the unblinking eyes.

  “Alex ran into a security guard called George Prescott,” she went on. “He’d managed to escape from Sarov’s plane using a gadget Smithers had given him.”

  “I don’t recall authorizing Smithers—” Blunt began.


  “Alex wanted to use a telephone,” Mrs Jones cut in. “Obviously, he was going to warn us about Murmansk, what Sarov was planning. This man, Prescott, stopped him.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  “Yes. It must have been very frustrating. Alex actually told him that he was a spy and that he was working for us, but then Sarov caught up with him. Prescott was killed – and that was the end of it. Or it would have been … but we were extremely fortunate. Prescott had a radio transmitter clipped to his jacket. It was turned on throughout his conversation with Alex and his office heard every word that was said. Of course, they didn’t believe Alex either, but when Prescott was found with a bullet in his head they put two and two together and got on to us as fast as they could. I was the one who alerted the authorities at Murmansk and I must say that the Russians acted very promptly. They pulled a naval force together, plus two helicopter gunships, and stormed the yard.”

  “What happened to the bomb?”

  “They have it. According to their people, it would have been big enough to blow a sizeable hole in the Kola Peninsula. The fallout would have contaminated Norway, Finland and, for that matter, most of Great Britain. And I really do think the backlash would have been enough to force Kiriyenko out of power. Nobody likes him very much anyway.”

  “Where is Kiriyenko?” Blunt’s soup was almost cold. He had forgotten what was meant to be in it.

  “The Cuban authorities found him locked up on Skeleton Key. Shouting his head off and blaming everyone except himself.” Mrs Jones shook her head. “He’s back in Moscow now. Sarov gave him a bad scare, but then he gave us all a bad scare. If it hadn’t been for Alex, who knows what might have happened.”

  “What do the Cubans have to say about all this?”

  “They’ve disowned Sarov. Nothing to do with them. They had no idea what he was planning. What’s so terrifying is that he nearly got away with it!”

  “If it hadn’t been for Alex Rider…”

  The two of them finished their first course in silence.

  “Where is Alex now?” Blunt asked eventually.

  “He’s home.”

  “How is he?”

  Mrs Jones sighed. “It would seem that Sarov shot himself,” she said. “Alex was standing right in front of him. The trouble with you, Alan, is that you’ve never had children and you refuse to accept the fact that, at the end of the day, Alex is only a child. He’s already been through far more than any fourteen year old could possibly be expected to … and this last mission! I would say it was his toughest yet. And at the very end he actually saw what Sarov did!”

  “I suppose Sarov didn’t want to be taken alive,” Blunt muttered.

  “I wish it was as simple as that. It seems that Sarov had some sort of … attachment to Alex. He saw him as the son he had lost. Alex rejected him and it pushed him over the edge. That’s why he did it. He couldn’t live with himself any more.”

  Blunt signalled and a waiter came over and poured the wine. It was unusual for the two spy-masters to drink at lunchtime but Blunt had selected a half bottle of Chablis, which had been sitting in an ice bucket beside their table. Another waiter served the main courses. The food sat on the table untouched.

  “What happened with that business with the triads?” Blunt asked.

  “Oh – I’ve sorted all that out. We had a couple of their people in jail and I arranged for them to be released. Flown back to Hong Kong. It was enough. They’ll leave Alex alone.”

  “So why do you say we’ve lost him?”

  “The truth is, we shouldn’t have used him in the first place.”

  “We didn’t use him. It was the CIA.”

  “You know that doesn’t make any difference.” Mrs Jones tasted the wine. “The point is, I was the one who debriefed him and all I can say is … he’s not the same. I know, I’ve said this all before. But I was seriously worried about him, Alan. He was so silent and withdrawn. He’d been badly hurt.”

  “Any broken bones?”

  “For heaven’s sake! Children can be hurt in other ways! I’m sorry, but I do feel very strongly about this. We can’t use him again. It isn’t fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair.” Blunt picked up his own glass. “I think you’re forgetting that Alex has just saved the world. That boy is fast becoming one of our most effective operatives. He’s the best secret weapon we have. We can’t afford to be sentimental about him. We’ll let him rest. I dare say he needs to catch up at school, and then there’s the summer holidays. But you know as well as I do, if the need arises, there’s nothing to discuss. We’ll use him again. And again…”

  Mrs Jones put down her knife and fork. “I’m suddenly not very hungry,” she said.

  Blunt glanced at her. “I hope you’re not getting a conscience,” he said. “If you’re really worried about Alex, bring him in and we’ll have a little heart to heart.”

  Mrs Jones looked her boss straight in the eye. “He may have trouble finding yours,” she said.

  The next day was a Saturday. Alex got up late, showered, dressed and went down to a breakfast that his housekeeper, Jack Starbright, had prepared for him. She had cooked all his favourite things but he ate little of it, sitting at the table in silence. Jack was desperately worried about him. The day before she had tried to get him to see a doctor and for the first time in his life he had snapped at her. Now she wasn’t sure what to do. If things didn’t get better she would talk to that woman – Mrs Jones. Jack wasn’t supposed to know what was going on, but she had a good idea. She would make them do something. Things couldn’t go on like this.

  “What you going to do today?” she asked.

  Alex shrugged. There was a bandage round his hand where the metal pole had cut him and a number of grazes on his face. Worst of all though were the bruises around his neck. Conrad had certainly left his mark.

  “D’you want to see a film?”

  “No. I thought I’d go for a walk.”

  “I’ll come with you, if you like.”

  “No. Thanks, Jack, but I’m OK on my own.”

  Ten minutes later, Alex left the house. The weather forecast had said it would be a bright day but in fact it was close and cloudy. He started walking towards the King’s Road, wanting to lose himself in the crowds. He had no real idea where he was going. He just needed to think.

  Sarov was dead. Alex had turned away as the man had raised the gun towards his own heart, not bearing to see any more. Minutes later it had all been over. The Repair Yard had been secured, the bomb removed. Alex himself had been whisked away by helicopter, first to a hospital in Moscow and then back to London. Someone had told him that Kiriyenko wanted to see him. There was talk of a medal. Alex had declined. He just wanted to go home.

  And that’s where he was. Everything had worked out all right. He was a hero!

  So why did he feel like this? And how exactly was it that he felt? Depressed? Exhausted? He was both of those things – but worse still, he felt empty. It was almost as if he had died in the Submarine Repair Shipyard of Murmansk and had somehow returned to London as a ghost. Life was all around him but he wasn’t a part of it. Even lying in his own bed, in his own house, he felt he no longer belonged.

  So much had happened to him but he wasn’t allowed to talk about it with anyone. He couldn’t even tell Jack. She would be horrified and upset – and there was nothing she could do anyway. He had missed more weeks of school and knew that it wasn’t just the work he would have to catch up with. Friendships move on too. People already thought he was weird. It wouldn’t be long before nobody was talking to him at all.

  He would never have a father. He knew this now. He would never have an ordinary life. Somehow, he had got himself trapped. A ghost. That was what he had become.

  Alex hadn’t heard the car stop behind him. He hadn’t heard the door open and close. But there were suddenly footsteps running up behind him and before he could move, a hand had been thrown around his chest.

  “Alex!” />
  He spun round. “Sabina!”

  Sabina Pleasure was standing in front of him, panting after the short run, wearing a Robbie Williams T-shirt and jeans, a brightly coloured straw bag over her shoulder. Her face was lit up with pleasure. “Thank goodness I found you. I’ve been after you for weeks. You never gave me your phone number but it’s lucky I knew your address. Mum and Dad drove me over…” She gestured at her parents, sitting in the car. They both raised a hand, waving at Alex through the windscreen. “I was going to look in just in case you were at home. And here you are!” She looked at his neck, examining his bruises. “You look terrible! Have you been involved in a car smash?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Anyway, Alex,” she interrupted. “I’m really pissed off with you. I saved your life in Cornwall, in case you don’t remember – although I have to say that giving you the kiss of life on the beach was the high point of the holiday – and the next thing I knew, you’d simply vanished. I didn’t even get so much as a thank-you card.”

  “Well, I was, sort of … busy.”

  “Being James Bond, I suppose?”

  “Well…” Alex didn’t know what to say.

  Sabina took his arm. “You can tell me all about it later. Mum and Dad have invited you to lunch and we want to talk about the South of France.”

  “What about it?”

  “That’s where we’re going this summer. And you’re coming too. We’ve got some friends who’ve lent us a house and a pool and it’s going to be great.” She looked closely at his face. “Don’t tell me you had other plans?”

  Alex smiled. “No, Sabina, I haven’t got any plans.”

  “That’s settled then. Now, what do you want for lunch? I fancy an Italian – but he’s been ignoring me so you’ll have to do!” She laughed.

  Alex and Sabina walked down the street together. Alex glanced up. The clouds had parted and the sun was out.

  It looked as if it was going to be a bright day after all.

  Anthony Horowitz is one of the most popular contemporary children’s writers. Both The Power of Five and Alex Rider are number one bestselling series enjoyed by millions of readers worldwide. When Anthony launched the Alex Rider series he created a phenomenon in children’s books, spurring a new trend of junior spy books and inspiring thousands of previously reluctant readers. Hailed as a reading hero, Anthony has also won many major awards, including the Bookseller Association/Nielson Author of the Year Award, the Children’s Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards, and the Red House Children’s Book Award. The first Alex Rider adventure, Stormbreaker, was made into a blockbuster movie in 2006.