He remembered the horses. They were still tethered to the railing, three of them, sturdy and fast, by the look of them. Alex hated riding, but at least they didn’t need keys! The horses already had saddles and bridles. They were ready to go. Crouching beside the crate, measuring distances, Alex tried to work out a plan. He had no doubt that he could reach the horses without being seen. Everyone was too busy to notice him. It was when he mounted up and began to ride that his problems would begin. The alarm would be raised and they would either shoot him or shoot the horse. If they lowered the portcullis—and that would be the first thing they would do—he would be trapped. He needed the element of surprise. But how?
The idea came to him so suddenly that he almost gasped. It was impossible! It couldn’t possibly work. But he was alone, surrounded by an entire army. He was going to be executed in a few hours’ time. What other choice did he have?
He started at once. If he thought about this, even for a second, he wouldn’t go through with it. It was early afternoon and the sun was at its hottest. That helped. A lot of Drake’s men were unfocused, wishing they could have a siesta. They didn’t notice the extra soldier making his way around the side of the cavern, carrying a bundle in his arms. Nor did they notice when he picked out one of the horses and got to work. The horse protested, snorting and stamping one of its hooves, but nobody came over. Alex was closer to the platform now and took stock of his surroundings. The camera was ready. Three more men were positioning a wooden stake in the ground, right next to the wall. That was for him. But Alex was grimly determined. Whatever happened, whether he lived or died, he wasn’t going to play their game. He would go out fighting. He just wished he had been able to grab one of the AK-47 machine guns. Falcon’s Edge was jammed with weapons of one sort or another. He was probably the only person in the entire place who was unarmed.
Alex’s heart was thumping and there was a hollow in his stomach as his entire being recoiled at the thought of what he was about to do. A group of soldiers walked past and he leaned down, pretending to busy himself with the horse he had chosen, in fact concealing himself behind it. He waited until they had gone. It was now or never. Once he climbed onto the horse, someone would be bound to see him. He couldn’t hesitate, not for one second.
And then the alarm went off.
Someone must have discovered the unconscious man—either that or they had come to check on him in the cell and found that it was empty. The alarm was not a bell. It was a siren that tore through the air, screaming its urgency. Well, that might help him too. For a moment everyone was confused, wondering what the fuss was about. Alex untethered the horse. At the last moment, he noticed a riding crop on the floor and snatched it up, knowing he would need it. Even as he steadied himself in the saddle, he felt the horse resisting. That was the whole secret of riding, that sense of understanding between the horse and its rider. Well, this horse would have realized at once that this Rider was not in control. It didn’t matter. Alex was desperate. Somehow he would get the animal to do what he wanted.
He jerked on the reins and wheeled around. At the same time, the scarf slipped and somebody cried out. They had seen him! Alex dug in his heels and for good measure lashed out with the crop. If the horse didn’t move, they would both get killed. Sure enough, there was a shot and a bullet ricocheted off the stone wall above their heads. The sound of it frightened the horse more than Alex had managed. He was almost thrown off as the animal reared up. Alex heard a second shot and felt a bullet pass inches over his shoulders. Everything was happening at the same time. He felt the cavern spin around him. There were men running toward him. The siren was still blasting at full volume. The horse’s front hooves made contact with the ground and then the two of them were off.
They were going the wrong way! The horse had set off at a gallop, but it was heading back into the cavern, toward the jeeps and the helicopter. Alex pulled frantically on the reins and wheeled the horse around. He heard a series of shots and the windows of the jeep right behind him shattered, the glass crashing down. The sunlight was straight ahead of him. There was the stone arch of the cavern, then the stone platform, and then, if he kept going, a drop of three hundred yards to the plain below. The gate with the portcullis was off to the right, but the guards were already ahead of him. At least ten of them had grouped together to block his way. They were all armed, waiting for him to ride toward them.
Alex wasn’t stopping now. With a yell, he whipped on the horse, propelling it out of the cavern and into the light. The soldiers were firing at him. He could feel the bullets scorching the air all around him. At this range, they shouldn’t have missed, but perhaps they were trying to hit him, not the horse, and anyway, they had miscalculated—he wasn’t riding toward them, he was going straight ahead. They stopped firing. There was no need to waste any more bullets. It was clear to them that Alex was committing suicide. He was heading straight toward the edge of the platform and the sheer drop beyond. Ten yards, five yards, three yards . . . Alex covered the ground in no time at all. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the metal gate crashing down to block the archway and, nearer to him, the execution post, the waiting camera. He ignored them. He had made his decision. It was happening now.
The horse sensed what he wanted, but only when it was too late. Alex whipped it one last time, hating what he was doing, knowing there was no other way. The soldiers stared. The horse screamed. The edge came rushing up toward them. And then they had gone, launching themselves into space. At that moment Alex was only aware of a great stillness, the sun blazing, the plain so far below that shrubs and boulders appeared only as tiny specks. He felt the wind in his hair. There was a sense almost of calm and he thought that maybe this was what death is like.
But he wasn’t going to die. Not today. When Alex had crossed the cavern, he had been carrying the parachute that had been used to air-drop the crate. He had attached it not to himself, but to the saddle and to each end of the horse, running the cords under its legs. When he had ridden out, he had been trailing the canopy behind him, and despite the alarms and the gunfire, his greatest fear had been that it would catch on something and tear. He had been lucky. The parachute had been intact as he urged the horse over the edge. The moment they cleared the platform, it was dragged upward, opening out. It was above them now. It had formed itself into a fantastic flower, shading them from the sun. And the two of them weren’t falling anymore. They were floating down.
It was a fantastic sight. The horse was terrified, its eyes bulging, its legs flailing as if it were galloping through the air. For his part, Alex was clinging on for dear life, too afraid to look down, vaguely aware of the cords stretching past him and the white silk billowing over his head. The parachute had taken their combined weight with ease. They were heading down toward the plain, at the same time being swept ever farther away from Falcon’s Edge. Alex risked a glance back and saw the soldiers on the platform, already miniature. One or two of them were shooting at them—he saw the flash of an AK-47—but they were well out of range. Apart from the rush of the breeze in his ears, everything was silent. Even the horse seemed to have stopped panicking. Gently, they wafted down.
The next time Alex looked, the ground was rushing up toward them, far faster than he would have expected. He tensed himself, waiting for the landing—but already he knew that he had been lucky. He had rigged the parachute perfectly. If the cords hadn’t been evenly divided, the horse could have tilted backward or forward and the two of them might have hit the ground as a twisting ball of animal and boy. Everything depended on the next few seconds. Alex had taken the horse with him because it wasn’t enough to break out of the citadel. He also needed to be moving at speed. He had no doubt that once they had recovered from the surprise, Drake and his men would be after him.
This was the moment of truth. Once again the horse was pedaling as if it understood what was about to happen. Alex tightened his knees and squeezed the reins. There was a t
hud as the four hooves came into contact with the ground. The horse stumbled and Alex was afraid that it might have injured itself. But then it recovered and suddenly they were chasing across the plain, dragging the parachute behind. Alex couldn’t stop himself. Like a cowboy in the Wild West, he whooped with delight. He had done it! When escape had been impossible, he had made the impossible escape.
It wasn’t over yet. Behind him, the gates of the citadel opened. Three jeeps, with four men in each, came roaring out in pursuit.
6
THE SHUJA CEMETERY
THE HORSE WAS BEHAVING perfectly, streaking across the plain in a dead straight line. Alex had thought he would have to stop to release the parachute, but rocks and spiky plants had ripped the fabric to shreds in a few seconds so that only the cords were left trailing behind. It seemed to him that everything had changed. After its ordeal, plummeting through the air, the horse had decided that perhaps Alex knew what he was doing after all and was now obeying his every command. Alex felt more comfortable in the saddle. They were going so fast that, when he looked down, the sand and wild grass swept past in little more than a vague green blur, but he no longer had the feeling that he was going to fall off. He had lost the riding crop as they came down, but he had no need of it. He was clutching the reins, keeping his head low, feeling the breeze rush over his shoulders.
He had no real idea where he was going. Back in London, Mrs. Jones had shown him a map with the location of the Shuja cemetery, but at that time he hadn’t thought he would need it. He was meant to be arriving there in the back of a van. He remembered her drawing a straight line with her finger, the direction southwest. She had also mentioned a village with a minaret, five miles on the other side. Alex couldn’t be certain, but he had seen where the sun had risen and had guessed that he was heading southwest. Also, there was definitely something tall and narrow on the horizon, although he couldn’t make it out yet. A minaret? He would know once he got closer.
He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The three jeeps were making their way down the winding track, going as fast as the hairpin bends would allow them. They already seemed a long way behind him, but Alex felt a tightening in his stomach. Once the jeeps reached the bottom, they would accelerate, and it might take them ten or fifteen minutes to catch up with him. And he didn’t really have anywhere to go. He doubted that Rafiq and his men would be waiting for him at the cemetery, and it was unlikely that he would find a hiding place among the gravestones. There was always Mrs. Jones’s village—but why would anyone there want to help him? The plain that surrounded him could hardly have been more desolate. He had the mountains behind him, an almost empty horizon ahead. He seemed to be pinned down by the sunlight. He could already feel it burning the back of his neck. The horse was doing its best, and it was a miracle that it hadn’t been hurt when it came into contact with the land. But it would soon get tired. Alex’s earlier euphoria had soon worn off. Things were looking hopeless once again.
He kept going. What other choice did he have? He heard the chime of a bell and turned in time to see a herd of goats scattering as he thundered past. There was no sign of any farmer or goatherd. There wasn’t anyone for miles around. He looked back. The jeeps had already left the track and were racing across the plain, sending up clouds of dust behind. He could even hear the engines. They were only a mile away . . . maybe less. He might have overestimated how much time he had left. He kicked in with his heels and felt the horse jolt forward, doing its best. The poor creature had little energy left. Its flanks were shiny with sweat. There was a part of Alex that felt sorry for what he had put it through, and the last thing he wanted was to see it gunned down. Even as the thought flickered through his head, he heard a gunshot. It was too far away to cause him any alarm, but it was a warning. The soldiers had him in their sights and they were getting closer with every second that passed.
He saw the cemetery. As he approached, it waved and shimmered, forming itself out of the heat haze. It was just stuck there, out on its own. No roads led to it. There were no signs, no indication that anyone had even noticed it existed. Alex saw the remains of a low, square wall built out of mud bricks. There were wide gaps where sections of it had collapsed, eaten away by the constant heat. About thirty or forty gravestones stood grouped together on the other side, with clumps of spiky wild grass and shrubs growing between them. Even as he hurtled toward it, Alex saw that there was something terribly sad about the place. These were British soldiers who had been buried here, victims of a war that had long been forgotten. Who were they? How had they died? They had come here in their bright red tunics, their white belts and helmets, marching into a country they couldn’t begin to understand, and they had never returned home. This was where they lay, and even their names were gone, fading away, wiped clean off their headstones by the relentless desert sun.
Nobody was waiting for him. He saw that at once. There were no horses, no men. Rafiq and the other Kochis had decided to go home. He glanced back and saw that the jeeps had halved the distance between him and them. If someone took a shot at him now, there was every chance he would be in range. What should he do? He could see the village on the other side of the cemetery, a collection of dusty houses gathered around a crumbling minaret. Was there any point continuing, or should he simply accept his fate and give himself up?
As if to answer the question, the horse stumbled and Alex was thrown off. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He felt his body separating from the saddle, and next he was turning in the air, his arms in front of him, desperately trying to protect himself. He crashed down. Fortunately the ground was soft, a mixture of dust and sand. He rolled over twice and came up spitting and coughing. He knew at once that nothing was broken. The horse wheeled away and continued around the side of the cemetery, and Alex wished it luck. At least it would be out of range when the soldiers arrived.
They were almost onto him. Alex heard the jeep engines and the sound of the wheels bumping over the plain. He saw the faces, bearded and angry, behind the windows. Faisal was with them! Alex saw him sitting in one of the front passenger seats. He must have joined them, wanting to take revenge on Alex for what had happened outside the cell. As the jeep slowed to a halt, he was the first one out, bringing up the pistol—old-fashioned, also Russian-made—that he had carried with him. Bruised and exhausted, Alex backed into the Shuja cemetery. He was surrounded by dead British soldiers. It was somehow fitting that, quite soon, a dead British spy would join them.
Darcus Drake’s soldiers came pouring out of the jeeps, moving more slowly now. They had caught up with Alex. They knew he had nowhere to go. Alex had expected Drake to come with them, but he wasn’t going to put himself outside the safety of Falcon’s Edge. The commanding officer was a wiry, curly-haired man in his twenties. He had a broken nose, and a beard sprouted unevenly on both sides of his face. He was holding a machine gun, and Alex wondered if he had been ordered to finish it here or to bring him back so that they could make their film.
“Alex Rider,” he said. He spoke the words as if for the first time, as if he didn’t know what they meant.
The gunshot, when it came, was loud and incredibly close. Alex flinched, expecting to feel the pain—in his chest, in his stomach, wherever he had been shot. Then he realized that the bullet had come from behind him. A red hole had appeared in the commanding officer’s head. He fell back, dropping the machine gun.
“Get down, Alex!”
The words, in English, were shouted out of nowhere. Instinctively, Alex obeyed. There were more shots. Two more of Drake’s men died.
Alex twisted around and looked behind him, staring in amazement as dusty figures rose up like zombies, climbing out of the graves. His first thought was that the ghosts of the nineteenth-century soldiers were rising up to save him, but he knew at once that it was simpler than that. Rafiq and his men had been waiting for him after all. They had used the old graves as hiding places, covering t
hemselves with a thin layer of sand. Now the four of them were revealing themselves, firing at the soldiers with guns they had been clutching all the time. Surprise was on their side. Another six men had been shot and killed before they understood what was happening.
Faisal was not one of them. Alex saw that he had not fired yet, although he too was armed with an AK-47 and could have taken out Rafiq and the others with a single burst. Could it be that he was reluctant to turn on his former friends? There was the click of a gun being loaded. Alex twisted and saw another of Drake’s men just a few steps away, pointing a pistol directly at his head. He knew what was about to happen. He saw it in the man’s eyes. Somehow the tables had turned. Alex had reached the cemetery and his friends were here, waiting for him. Half of Drake’s men had been killed. But whatever happened, the English boy was not going to get away. This man had decided it. He was going to kill him now.
The commanding officer had dropped his machine gun. It was lying on the ground, just inches away. Alex dived for it. But before he could reach it, Faisal stepped forward and Alex saw the white flame as his machine gun spat out its thirty rounds in a matter of seconds. But he wasn’t aiming at Alex. He wasn’t aiming at Rafiq. Impossibly, he was shooting Drake’s men, including the one who had been about to finish Alex. Alex saw him blasted off his feet.
Alex Rider--Secret Weapon Page 5