Snakes—and spiders—have a power that’s hard to define. It’s primal. When one comes close, human beings will react in the same way as any animal, and that was what had happened to Alex. He had been submerged in pure, instinctive terror, and it took him several minutes to recover, all the time staring at the severed head and the red, bleeding stub, wondering if the creature was really dead. Only when his heart was beating normally did he turn the transmitter back on, deactivating the fan once again. Then, carefully, he made his way through, trying to ignore the blood splatter on the pipe all around him.
After that, he moved as quickly as possible—both to make up time and to put the nightmare far behind him.
“When you get through the exhaust fan, there’s about a hundred yards. It’s pretty level and you should have nothing to worry about until you get to the main air shaft. That’s when things begin to get interesting.”
Smithers’s voice guided Alex as he continued forward. The pipe was large enough to allow him to move freely, but he still felt the weight of the mountain, the intense darkness, the loneliness, and he had to fight to stay focused, to breathe normally. He had remembered to turn the fan back on before he left. He didn’t want a maintenance engineer turning up to see what was wrong. Ahead of him he was aware of a soft beating sound, some sort of machinery. He knew that he was getting close to the end.
“The plans show that the air shaft drops vertically—six hundred feet. That’s about the height of the Gherkin in London. It’s one hell of a drop, but unfortunately it’s polished steel, so you can’t climb down. It’s too far to lower you on a rope. And I’m afraid it’s not quite wide enough for a parachute.”
“So what do I do?”
“That’s a very good question, Alex.”
Alex reached the edge of the air shaft. The ground had opened up beneath him and he lay, stretched out on his stomach, gazing down into nothingness. The beam of his headlamp was nowhere near powerful enough to reach the bottom and simply stopped in midair, illuminating the metal circle around it. The height of the Gherkin. It was as if he were lying on the roof of a London skyscraper, thinking about throwing himself off. Smithers had assured him that he had a plan and that it would work, but Alex could only take his word for it. Was he reliable?
Well, there was only one way to find out. Alex swallowed hard, then reached behind him and found a cable poking out of his backpack. It had a jack plug that clicked into a socket built into one of the shoulders of his combat suit. He turned it and heard the safety lock engage. Then he waited for the computer that he had carried all this distance to boot up and do its work. Smithers had said it would only take five seconds, but he waited half a minute just to be sure.
This was worse than the snake. What he was about to do went against every instinct. It was like committing suicide. But there was no other way.
Alex swung himself around and threw himself into the void.
3
A LONG WAY DOWN
ALEX FELL, FEETFIRST, HURTLING to what felt like certain death. He couldn’t see. The light was spinning uselessly around him, bouncing off the walls of the shaft and turning them into a dazzling blur. He could feel the wind punching up at him. He wanted to scream but iron bands had fastened themselves around his chest and his throat and no sound came. How fast was he falling? A hundred miles per hour? Two hundred? If he hit the ground at this velocity, every bone in his body would shatter. Everything depended on the equipment he had been given, but even Smithers had sounded uncertain.
“Of course it’ll work! I mean, I hope it’ll work. But it is a prototype, you know . . .”
And now its moment had come. There was nothing for Alex to do. It all worked automatically.
First, the shoes. There were two miniature echo sounders built into the soles, behind the glass panels. They worked in much the same way as a depth finder on a boat. As Alex fell, they transmitted sound pulses that bounced back off the floor. The exact time of each pulse was recorded by the computer in Alex’s backpack and—if Smithers had done his job—it would know exactly how far he had fallen.
Just three and a half seconds after Alex had launched himself over the edge, they registered that the end of the pipe was exactly one hundred yards away. One second later, the distance was just sixty yards. Instantly, the computer activated four tiny explosive devices in Alex’s belt. Alex felt the suction pads being released, exploding outward, trailing four lightweight cords. These were made out of the same superstrength nylon that Smithers had built into the yo-yo that Alex had taken with him on his first mission in Cornwall. The pads slammed into the metal wall and instantly stuck in place. The cords led back into a spool system concealed in the backpack, and as they unraveled, they slowed down the rate of Alex’s descent. He heard the gears turning and felt a lurch in his stomach as the cords took up more and more of his weight. Fifty yards, forty yards, thirty yards . . . He was like a spider dropping out of a web. At ten yards, the rushing wind had stopped and Alex finally felt able to look down. He could see the floor below him. The cords lowered him the last few yards. His feet gently came to a rest against the bottom of the next horizontal pipe.
He had arrived.
He took a deep breath. He felt as if he had left his stomach somewhere behind him, and his head was throbbing, if only because of the change of pressure. With a shaking hand, he released the cords, which remained dangling from the edge of the pipe. Good old Smithers! He would be delighted to know that his invention had worked perfectly . . . assuming, of course, that Alex got back in one piece to tell him.
The new pipe offered him a choice of two directions. Trusting his instincts, Alex crawled forward and a moment later he arrived at a maintenance hatch, locked from the outside. But once again, Smithers had prepared him. Alex drew a short black cylinder out of his belt and weighed it in his hand. It looked like a flashlight, but in fact it was a metal vapor torch fueled by a mixture of copper oxide and magnesium to produce an astonishingly powerful flame burning at 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit. He flicked it on and the flame leapt out, the carbon fiber nozzle turning it into a blade, which cut through the metal in a matter of seconds. Alex glanced at his watch. It was half past four in the morning. Everything had been timed so that he would arrive at Falcon’s Edge when almost all the personnel would be asleep and security would be at its weakest. He waited until the metal had cooled, then pushed the hatch open and climbed through.
He found himself on the edge of a vast chamber the size of an aircraft hangar—and there was indeed a burned-out helicopter abandoned on one side. The place was like nothing he had ever seen before, nothing he could have imagined. It was as if the entire mountain had been hollowed out to make room for storage, weapons, ammunition, and machinery. A night lighting system had been set in place, a series of neon tubes that cast a soft glow over everything, and looking around him, Alex saw half a dozen jeeps and other military vehicles parked in rows, some with anti-aircraft guns mounted on the roof. There were great piles of wooden crates, metal cylinders, half-dismantled pieces of machinery, and, everywhere, a fantastic array of weapons, including rocket launchers, bazookas, hand grenades, and AK-47 machine guns—enough to supply a small army. Alex began to creep forward, then ducked down, burying himself in the shadows, as something moved. A moment later, he relaxed. It wasn’t a guard. There were three horses tethered to a rail. One of them had stamped its hoof on the stone floor.
The far end of the chamber was open to the night air. Keeping his distance from the horses—he was afraid of disturbing them and alerting any guards who might be passing—he made his way outside and found himself on a huge platform. He had plummeted two hundred yards down the pipe, but he was still another three hundred yards above ground level. Now he knew how Falcon’s Edge had gotten its name. The fortress was built into the side of the mountain, far above the empty plain that stretched out below, washed over by the silver light of the stars. Standing on the ed
ge of the platform, Alex was surrounded by giant walls, ramparts, and battlements. If he took one step forward, there would be nothing to stop him from falling to his death. It would be like stepping off a cliff. This was where the tribesmen had once executed their prisoners, throwing them into the abyss. Looking down at the ground, far away, he could imagine the terror they must have felt.
A massive archway stood to one side, with a gate, a portcullis, that was closed and locked. The gate looked ancient, but the security camera mounted in the stonework was brand-new, and Alex made sure he kept out of its range. A rough track ran down the mountainside behind it, but he couldn’t possibly have entered that way. He would have been seen at once. Even so, if all went well, that was how he would be leaving in a little over two hours’ time. Somewhere, out in the darkness, the Shuja cemetery was waiting for him. It suddenly occurred to him what a grim meeting place Mrs. Jones had arranged. He just hoped he wouldn’t be needing it for all the wrong reasons.
He went back into the main body of the fortress, once again passing the horses. They were still restless, sensing his presence, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. He had a job to do. Mrs. Jones needed evidence that the calutron was there and that it was close to working. Back in England, he had studied the plans and he knew where he had to go—it meant crossing back through the storage area. He had gotten about halfway when he heard the unmistakable sound of boots on stone. Instantly, he crouched down behind one of the crates, noticing an expanse of white silk draped over the top. That was interesting. It was a parachute. Quite a lot of these supplies must have been dropped in by air, suggesting that Drake had friends in neighboring countries. Pakistan, perhaps? Or China? Alex knew that Middle East politics were enormously complicated, but it still might be in somebody’s interest to support the new terrorist group, and he made a mental note to mention it to MI6.
Two soldiers walked past without seeing him. They were dressed in loose-fitting olive-green jackets and trousers with heavy boots, the uniform of ragtag armies all over the world. Both were dark, bearded, and young. They carried machine guns slung over their backs. Alex waited until they had gone, then continued through the hangar, past the jeeps, making sure there were no cameras. Looking up, he saw iron gantries crisscrossing the ceiling with dozens of arc lamps hanging down. Huge fans were slowly turning, circulating the air. There didn’t seem to be any closed-circuit cameras.
He reached a staircase that he knew led up to the living quarters, contained within the fortress itself. Ahead of him, there was a corridor. It was exactly where he knew it would be. He followed it to the end. Five metal steps led into a second chamber. The calutron was right in front of him.
He had been shown photographs and knew what to expect, but even so, the size of it and its sheer ugliness surprised him. It was housed in a sort of cradle made up of concrete pillars, steel girders, walkways, and ladders. It had the oval shape of an athletics stadium but it was about one-tenth of the size, with a wall of ceramic tiles and, above it, a platform and handrail that went all the way around. Alex guessed it would have taken him about five minutes to walk the complete circuit if he had wanted to. The whole thing looked strangely old-fashioned, but then, it had been built back in the eighties. It looked dead and neglected. Smithers had given him a lecture about how the calutron worked—something to do with magnetic fields, ions colliding, uranium isotopes, and all the rest of it. Was it actually working? It was making no sound at all. The truth was that Alex didn’t really care. That wasn’t his concern. He just wanted to take his pictures and get out of here.
He unzipped the backpack one last time and took out the camera he had been given. It was a Leica S 007 (the number had made him smile), one of the most advanced medium-format digital cameras in the world. Alex had been quite surprised that MI6 had provided him with such a stylish—and expensive—piece of equipment. He knew that it was incredibly fast and responsive, with a capture rate of 3.5 frames per second. He also knew that it would have cost him $25,000 if he’d gone out to buy one. Why did he need it? He wasn’t out to win a photography competition. He was just here to take pictures of a lump of machinery. The camera concealed in his helmet would have done the job just as well.
Still, he wasn’t going to argue. Quickly, he began photographing the chamber, the machine, the various wires and pipes, the dials and the gauges. Mrs. Jones had asked him to capture everything he could.
“Take a thousand pictures if you have to. I want to know everything that’s in that room.”
Of course, it would all be useless if he couldn’t get out himself. That was the problem. The great mass of the Herat Mountains had prevented satellites from picking up any evidence of the calutron, and for the same reason, Alex was unable to send his images over the internet. He would carry them with him, physically, when he left.
And that had all been arranged. He took some photographs of one of the control panels, then glanced at his watch. Quarter past five. At seven o’clock, three supply vehicles would be arriving at Falcon’s Edge, delivering fresh food from the market. One of the drivers had been bribed. Alex would be smuggled out in a crate and driven through the archway he had seen, then taken to the cemetery. When Mrs. Jones had outlined the plan, it had seemed unlikely, but she had been confident.
“You don’t need to worry, Alex. They’re only worried about people breaking into the complex, not breaking out. No one will have any idea you’re there. The driver’s name is Farshad and he’ll be in a truck with a green cross on it. Just make sure you’re not seen by anyone else . . .”
He had taken enough pictures. Alex had decided that, for once, Mrs. Jones had gotten her intelligence wrong. None of the gauges that he had photographed had shown anything but zero. Some of the cables were disconnected. If Darcus Drake was planning to manufacture uranium, he wasn’t going to start anytime soon. Part of him was annoyed. Of course he was glad that Drake wouldn’t be able to supply terrorist groups with nuclear material. But after all the effort of getting here, Alex was beginning to think it had all been a waste of time. Couldn’t Mrs. Jones have found out the truth before he left?
The camera was still hanging around his neck and he was just reaching up to turn it off when something metallic touched the back of his head and a voice, speaking with an Irish accent, said, “Please raise your hands very slowly, Alex, and don’t try anything stupid or I really will blow your brains out.”
Alex did as he was told. Without turning around, he lifted both hands, at the same time asking himself not how he had been caught, but how the man with the gun knew his name.
4
THE AWAKENING
“ALL RIGHT, ALEX. YOU can turn around now.”
Keeping his hands above his head, Alex did just that. He felt the gun move away from the back of his skull, but as he turned full circle, he saw it pointing directly between his eyes, a silver TT-33 self-loading pistol—made in Russia, like the calutron. One twitch of a finger, and it would fire a 7.62 mm bullet, traveling at four hundred yards per second, into his head.
The man whose finger was now curled between life and death was smiling. He had only just been roused from his bed. Alex could tell that from the stubble on his cheeks, the untidy silver hair, and the gray eyes that hadn’t quite shaken off their sleep. He was in his mid-thirties and reminded Alex of a long-distance runner, very slim and light on his feet. He was wearing a loose-fitting black tracksuit with a T-shirt. This had to be Darcus Drake. As Drake stood facing him, Alex’s first thought was that this was an unusually handsome and very confident man. It was only as the seconds ticked past that he realized something was wrong. Drake was still smiling. His expression hadn’t changed, as if the photographer had been photographed himself. And the smile was only on his mouth, not in his eyes. There was nothing friendly about it, nothing humorous. It was simply there.
He was not alone. There were three soldiers surrounding him, watching Alex with deeply hos
tile eyes.
“You must be Alex Rider,” Drake said.
“Yes.” There seemed to be little point denying it.
“And you got in through the ventilation system?” He laughed softly, but the smile remained the same. “I have to say, I really hadn’t seen that one coming. It must have been a tight squeeze, even for you. Anyway, it’s very early and you must be hungry. Why don’t we have breakfast together?” He glanced at the guards and spoke to them rapidly in Farsi. Then he turned back to Alex. “I’ve told them to take everything you’ve brought with you and to give you a new set of clothes. I’m afraid we may not have anything very stylish, but I’m not taking any chances, not when you’ve been equipped by MI6. Once they’ve done that, they’ll bring you to me.”
“How did you know I was here?” Alex didn’t expect Drake to answer, but he had to know if he had made a mistake.
To his surprise, Drake seemed to be amused by the question. At least, his eyes lit up even if the rest of his face refused to move. “Well, I suppose you deserve to know that, after all your effort,” he said in his lilting Irish accent. He gestured with one hand and a fifth man appeared, coming down the metal steps. Alex recognized him at once: the unpleasant white eye, the beard, the turban. It was Faisal, the tribesman who had ridden with him into the mountains.
Alex Rider--Secret Weapon Page 3