Jerry was standing next to him, dressed in knee-length shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. He had brought along a pair of binoculars and Alex examined the wide concrete steps that led up to the main entrance. There were a few outlying buildings, warehouses and ventilation plants, and a car park with about a hundred cars. He trained the binoculars on the roof of the main complex. He could see two water tanks, a row of solar panels and, next to them, a brick tower with a single, open door. A fire escape? If he could reach it, he might just find a way in.
But it was obvious that he could get nowhere near. The entire site was surrounded by a fence more than six metres high and topped with razor wire. A single track led to a checkpoint, with a second one right behind it. Every car that went in and out was searched. And, just to be sure, cameras mounted on steel poles swivelled and rotated, the lenses sweeping over every centimetre of ground. Even a fly trying to get in would have been noticed. And swatted, Alex thought gloomily.
Consanto Enterprises had chosen this position carefully. Amalfi, the busy, densely populated Mediterranean port, was a few miles to the south, and there were a few isolated villages to the north. The complex was in a sort of hole, a flat and rocky stretch of landscape with few trees or buildings – nowhere to hide. Alex was standing with the sea about half a mile behind him. There were sailing boats dotted about and a single ferry ploughed through the water on its way to the island of Capri. His overwhelming impression was that it would be impossible to approach Consanto from any direction without being spotted. He was probably being filmed even now.
“You see what I mean?” Jerry said.
Tom had his back to the buildings; he was looking at the sea. “Anyone fancy a swim?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Jerry nodded slowly. “You bring any trunks?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter. We can swim in our underpants.”
“I’m not wearing underpants.”
Jerry glanced at his brother. “You are so gross!”
Alex watched as a supply van made its way past the first control post. It really did look impossible. Even if he managed to sneak into a car or a truck, he would be found when it was searched. There was no point waiting until nightfall. There were dozens of arc lamps arranged around the perimeter and they would flick on the minute it grew dark. He could see uniformed guards patrolling the grounds with German shepherd dogs on leashes. They would probably be there all night too.
He was about to give up. He couldn’t get in from the front or the sides; he couldn’t climb the fence. He looked past the complex. It had been set against a sheer cliff. The rock face rose at least three hundred metres and he noticed a cluster of buildings, far away, at the summit.
He pointed. “What’s that?” he asked.
Jerry followed the direction of Alex’s finger. “I don’t know.” He thought for a moment. “It’s probably Ravello. It’s a hilltop village.”
“Can we go there?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Alex put it all together in an instant. The flat roof with the fire escape, seemingly open. The village perched high up on the cliff. The equipment he had seen in Jerry’s flat in Naples. Suddenly it was very simple.
Consanto Enterprises might look impregnable. But Alex had found a way in.
The faded eighteenth-century villa stood some distance away from Ravello, reached by a path that twisted along the side of the mountain, high above the pine trees. It was a wonderful place to escape to, lost in its own world, far away from the crowds on the beaches and in the streets below. A cool evening breeze drifted in from the sea and the light had turned from a blue to a mauve to a deep red as the sun slowly set. There was an ornamental garden with a long avenue running down the centre and, at the far end, a terrace that appeared unexpectedly with white marble heads mounted on the parapet. Beyond the terrace, there was nothing. The garden simply came to an abrupt end with a sheer drop straight down to the coastal road, the Consanto complex and the rocky flatlands three-hundred-odd metres below.
The tourists had long ago left for the evening. The villa was about to close. Alex stood on his own, thinking about what he had to do. His mouth was dry and there was an unpleasant churning in his stomach. This was madness. There had to be another solution. No. He had examined all the possibilities. This was the only way.
He knew that BASE jumping was one of the most dangerous of all extreme sports, and that every BASE jumper would know someone who had been injured or killed. BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span and Earth. It means, essentially, parachuting without the use of an aircraft. BASE jumpers will throw themselves off skyscrapers, dams, rock faces and bridges. The jumps themselves aren’t against the law, but they’re usually done without permission, often in the middle of the night. Trespassing, being outside the system, is all part of the fun.
They had driven all the way back to Naples to get the equipment which Jerry Harris had agreed to lend to Alex. Jerry had used the long journey to give Alex as much information about the techniques and the potential dangers as he could. A crash course, Tom had muttered gloomily. Just what Alex didn’t need.
“The first and most important rule is the one that beginners find hardest,” Jerry said. “When you jump, you’ve got to wait as long as possible before you release the canopy. The longer you wait, the further you travel away from the side of the cliff. And you must keep your shoulders level. The last thing you need is a one eighty onto a hard-core object.”
“What’s that in English?” Alex asked.
“It’s what occurs when you get an off-heading opening. Basically, it means you go the wrong way and hit the cliff.”
“And what happens then?”
“Yeah. Well … you die.”
Alex was wearing a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads. Jerry had also lent him a pair of sturdy hiking boots. But that was all. He would need to react instantly as he fell through the sky, and too much protective gear would only slow him down. Besides, as Jerry had pointed out, nobody had ever made a BASE jump without basic training. If something went wrong, all the protective clothes in the world wouldn’t do him one bit of good.
And the difference between life and death?
For Alex it boiled down to two hundred and twenty square feet of F111 nylon. Skydivers need on average one square foot of parachute for every pound of their body weight and equipment. But BASE jumpers need almost half that again. Alex’s chute had been designed for Jerry, who was heavier than he was. He would have plenty of material.
He was carrying a seven-cell Blackjack canopy which Jerry had bought second hand for a little under one thousand American dollars. An ordinary parachute normally contains nine cells – nine separate pockets. The larger BASE canopy is thought to be more docile, easier to fly and land accurately. Alex’s own weight would drag it out of the deployment bag as he fell, and it would inflate over his head, taking the shape of an aerofoil, the ram-air design of all modern parachutes.
Jerry stood next to him, pointing a black gadget about the size and shape of a pair of binoculars at the ground. He was taking a reading. “Three hundred and fifty-seven metres,” he said. He took out a laminated card – an altitude delay planner – and quickly consulted it. “You can do a four,” he said. “It’ll give you approximately fifteen seconds under canopy. A six max. But that’ll mean landing almost at once.”
Alex understood what he was saying. He could free-fall for between four and six seconds. The less time he spent dangling underneath the parachute, the less chance he would have of being spotted from below. On the other hand, the faster he arrived, the more chance he would have of breaking most of his bones.
“And when you get down there, remember…”
“Flaring.”
“Yes. If you don’t want to break both your legs, you have to slow yourself down about three or four seconds before impact.”
“Not three or four seconds after impact,” Tom added helpfully. “That’ll be too late.”
“Thanks!�
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Alex looked around. There was nobody in sight. He half wished a policeman or somebody from the villa would come along and put a stop to this before he could actually jump. But the gardens were empty. The white marble heads stared past him, not remotely interested.
“You’ll go from nought to sixty miles an hour in about three seconds,” Jerry went on. “I’ve put on a mesh slider, but you’re still going to feel the opening shock. But at least that’ll warn you you’re about to land. That’s when you get both feet and knees together. Put your chin on your chest. And try not to bite your tongue in half. I almost did on my first time.”
“Yes.” Single words were about all Alex could manage.
Jerry looked over the precipice. “The roof of Consanto is right beneath us and there’s no wind. You won’t have much time to steer but you can try pulling on the toggles.” He rested a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “I could do this for you, if you like,” he said.
“No.” Alex shook his head. “Thanks, Jerry. But it’s down to me. It was my idea.”
“Good luck.”
“Break a leg!” Tom exclaimed. “Or rather – don’t.”
Alex moved to the edge between two of the statues and looked down. He was right over the complex, although from this height it looked tiny, like a silver Lego brick. Most of the workers would have left by now but there would still be guards. He would just have to hope that nobody looked up in the few seconds it would take him to arrive. But that was what he had observed earlier, outside the gate. Consanto faced the sea. The main road and the entrance were on the same side. That was where all their attention was focused, and if Alex was lucky, he would be able to drop in – quite literally – unnoticed.
His stomach heaved. There was no feeling in his legs. He felt as if he were floating. He tried to take a deep breath but the air didn’t seem to want to rise above his chest. Did it really matter to him so much, penetrating Consanto, finding out how it might be involved with Scorpia? What would Tom and his brother say if he changed his mind, even at this last minute?
To hell with it, he thought. Lots of teenagers did BASE jumps. Jerry himself had recently jumped off the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. It had been Bridge Day, the one day in the year when the jump was legal in America, and he had said there’d been dozens of kids waiting in line. It was a sport. People did it for fun. If he hesitated for one more second, he would never do it. It was time to get it over with.
In a single movement he climbed onto the parapet, checked the line from the pilot chute, took one last look at the target and jumped.
It was like committing suicide.
It was like nothing he had ever experienced.
Everything was a blur. There was the sky, the edge of the cliff and (unless he imagined it) Tom’s staring face. Then it all tilted. The blue rushed into the grey with the white of the roof punching up. The wind hammered into his face. His eyes were being sucked into the backs of their sockets with the sudden acceleration. He had to deploy. No. Jerry had warned him about this. How many seconds?
Now!
He threw out the pilot chute, hoping it would find the clean airflow that was meant to surround him. Had it worked? The chute had already disappeared, dragging with it the bridle line which would in turn suck the Blackjack canopy out of its pack. God! He’d left it too late. He was falling too fast. A long, silent scream with the wind in his ears, skin crawling. Where was the bloody chute? Where was up? Where was down? Falling…
And then there was a sudden wrenching, braking sensation. He thought he was being torn in half. He could see something, ropes and billowing material, just at the edge of his vision. The canopy! But that didn’t matter. Where was he going? He looked down and saw his own feet, dangling in space. A white rectangle was racing up to meet them. The roof of the complex – but it was too far away. He was going to miss. Quick. Pull the toggles. That’s better. The roof tilted back towards him. What had he forgotten? Flaring! He pulled down on both brakes, dropping the tail of the canopy so that – like a plane landing – he came in at an upward angle. But had he left it too late?
All he could see was the surface of the roof. Then he hit it. He felt the shock travel through his ankles, his knees and up into his thighs. He ran forward. The canopy was dragging him. Jerry had warned him about this. There might be a stronger breeze lower down and if he wasn’t careful he would be pulled off the roof. He could see the edge racing towards him. He dug in his heels, reaching behind him for the risers. He caught hold of them and pulled them in. Stop running! With just centimetres to spare, he managed to get a grip with the balls of his feet. He leant back, tugging the canopy towards him. He sat down hard.
He had arrived.
For a few seconds he did nothing. He was experiencing the massive high that all BASE jumpers know and which makes the sport so addictive. His body was releasing a flood of adrenalin and it was coursing through his entire system. His heart was pumping at double speed. He could feel every hair on his skin standing up. He looked back up at the cliff. There was no sign of Tom or his brother. Even if they had been standing there, they would have been too small to see. Alex couldn’t believe how far he’d travelled, or how quickly he’d arrived. And as far as he could tell, the guards had kept their heads down, their eyes on the ground, not the air. So much for Consanto’s security!
Alex waited until his heart and pulse rate had returned to normal, then pulled off the helmet and protective pads. He quickly folded the chute and packed it as best as he could inside the bag. He could taste blood in his mouth and realized that, despite Jerry’s warnings, he’d still managed to bite his tongue.
Keeping low, he carried the bag with the canopy over to the door that he had seen earlier from the ground. He was going to have to leave Jerry’s equipment up here on the roof until it was time to leave. He had more or less worked out how he was going to get out of Consanto. The easiest way would simply be to call the police and get himself arrested. At the very worst, he would be prosecuted for trespassing. But he was only fourteen. He doubted he would find himself in an Italian jail – more likely they would pack him off back to England.
The door was ajar. He had been right about that. A dozen cigarette butts on the roof told their own story. Despite all the security guards, the cameras and the high-tech alarms, a single smoker in need of a fag had found his way up here and blown the whole place wide open.
Well, that was fine. Alex slipped in through the door and found a flight of metal steps leading down. There was a set of more solid-looking doors – steel with small glass windows – and for a moment Alex thought his way was blocked. But there must have been some sort of sensor. They slid open as he approached, then closed again after him. Perhaps the anonymous smoker had set it up that way. Alex turned and waved a hand. The doors didn’t move. A numerical keypad on the wall told him the bad news. Getting in this way was one thing. But to get out again, he would need a code. He was trapped.
There was only one way to go and that was forward. He followed a blank white corridor down to another set of doors which hissed open and shut as he passed through. He had entered the core of the complex. There was an immediate difference to the air quality. It was extremely cold and smelt metallic. He glanced up and noticed a brightly polished silver duct running the full length of the passage. There were dials and monitors everywhere. Already his head was beginning to ache. This place was just too clean.
He kept moving, wanting to see as much as possible before he was discovered. There didn’t seem to be anyone around – all the workers must have gone home for the night – but it could only be a matter of time before security looked in. He heard a door open somewhere. Alex’s heart flipped and he quickly searched for somewhere to hide. The corridor was bare, brightly lit by powerful neon lights behind glass panels. There wasn’t so much as a shadow to give him cover. He saw a doorway and hurried over to it, but the door was locked. Alex pressed himself against the door, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t be s
een.
A man appeared round the corner. At first it was hard to be sure that it was a man. The figure was wrapped in a pale blue protective suit that covered every centimetre of his body. He had a hood over his head and a glass mask in front of his face, obscuring most of his features – but then he turned sideways and Alex caught a glimpse of glasses and a beard. The man was pushing what looked like a huge tea urn, shining chrome, mounted on wheels. The urn was as tall as he was, with a series of valves and pipes on the lid. To Alex’s relief the man turned off down a second corridor.
Alex looked at the door which had provided him with minimal cover. It had a thick glass window – like the front of a washing machine – and there was a large room on the other side, still lit but empty. Alex supposed it must be a laboratory but it looked more like a distillery, with more urns, some of them suspended on chains. There was a metal staircase leading up to some sort of gantry and a whole wall lined with what looked like enormous fridge doors. All the metal looked brand new, brilliantly polished.
As Alex watched, a woman crossed the room. The complex obviously wasn’t as deserted as he had thought. She was also dressed in protective clothes, with a mask over her face, and she was pushing a silver trolley. His breath frosted on the glass as he tried to peer in. It didn’t make any sense, but the woman seemed to be carrying eggs … hundreds of them, neatly lined up on trays. They were the size of ordinary chickens’ eggs, every one of them pure white. Could the woman be part of the catering team? Alex doubted it. There was something almost sinister about the eggs. Perhaps it was their uniformity, the fact that they were all so obviously identical. The woman went behind some machinery and disappeared. Increasingly puzzled, Alex decided it was time to move on.
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