Scorpia (27 page)

She paused, as if waiting for him to congratulate her. Alex was meant to be a member of her organization, the newest recruit. His father would have been glad to stand at her side. But Alex couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t find it in himself. He couldn’t even pretend.

“You can’t do it!” he whispered. “You can’t kill children just to get rich.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he knew he had made a mistake. Julia Rothman’s reaction was as fast as a snake … as fast as a scorpion. One moment, that soft, casual smile had been on her lips; the next, she was rigid, alert, her whole consciousness focused on Alex.

Nile looked over, sensing something was wrong. Alex waited for the axe to fall. And then it came.

“Children?” Mrs Rothman murmured. “I never said anything about children.”

“But there
will
be children.” Alex tried frantically to backtrack. “Adults and children.”

“No, Alex.” Mrs Rothman seemed almost amused. “You know that children are the targets. I never told you that; so somebody else must have.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

She was examining him minutely. Closing in on him. And suddenly she saw it. “I thought there was something different about you,” she snapped. “What’s that you’ve got on your teeth?”

It was too late to hide it. Alex opened his mouth. “I wear a brace.”

“You weren’t wearing a brace in Positano.”

“I didn’t have it in.”

“Take it out.”

“It doesn’t come out.”

“It will – with a hammer.”

Alex had no choice. He reached into his mouth and took out the piece of plastic. Nile moved closer, his eyes full of curiosity.

“Let me see it, Alex.”

Like a naughty boy caught eating gum, Alex held out his hand. The brace was resting in his palm. And it was obvious it was no ordinary brace. They could see some of the circuitry leading to the switch he had activated.

Had he pressed it in time?

“Drop it!” Mrs Rothman commanded.

Alex let the brace fall to the floor and she stepped forward. Her foot came down on it and Alex heard the sound of breaking plastic as she ground it into the tiles. When she removed her foot the brace was cracked in half, the wire bent. If it had been transmitting before, it certainly wasn’t now.

Mrs Rothman turned to Nile. “You’re a fool, Nile. I thought I told you to search him from top to bottom.”

“His mouth…” Nile didn’t know what to say. “It was the one place I didn’t look.”

But she had already turned back to Alex. “You
didn’t do it, did you, Alex?” Her voice was full of scorn. “You didn’t kill her. Mrs Jones is still alive.”

Alex said nothing. Mrs Rothman stared at him for what seemed like an eternity, and then she struck. She was faster and stronger than he would have guessed. Her hand slammed into the side of his face. The sound of it echoed all around. Alex staggered back, dazed. His whole head was ringing and he could feel his cheek glowing red. Mrs Rothman signalled and two guards with machine guns stepped forward to stand next to him, one on either side.

“We may be expecting company,” she announced in a loud, clear voice. “I want units three, four and five to take up defensive positions.”

“Units three, four and five to the perimeter.” An amplified voice relayed the command and twenty of the men ran forward, their feet stamping on the metal gantries, heading for the front of the church.

Mrs Rothman gazed at Alex with eyes that had lost their disguise. They were utterly cruel. “Mrs Jones may be alive,” she spat, “but you won’t be. You have very little time left to live, Alex. Why do you think I brought you here? It’s because I want to see it for myself. I had a special reason to want to kill you, and believe it or not, my dear, you’re already dead.”

She looked past him. The balloon was fully inflated, floating in the space between the floor and the dome. The platform with its deadly cargo
was underneath it, hovering a metre above the ground. The ropes were ready. The dishes were set to automatic.

“Start the launch,” Mrs Rothman commanded. “It’s time London saw the power of Invisible Sword.”

“L
aunch … status red. Launch … status red.”

The disembodied voice rang out as one of the Scorpia technicians, sitting in front of a bank of machinery, reached out and pressed a button.

There was a single metallic click and then the hum of machinery as a wheel turned somewhere overhead. Alex looked up. At first glance it seemed to him that the saints and angels were flying apart, as if they had come to life and were drifting down to the pews to pray. Then, with a gasp, he saw what was actually happening. The entire roof was moving. The dome of the oratory had been reconstructed with hidden hydraulic arms that were slowly pulling it open. A crack appeared and widened. He could see the sky. An inch at a time, the great dome was folding back, splitting into two halves. Mrs Rothman was staring upwards, her face filled with delight. Only now did Alex see how
much planning had gone into this operation. The entire church had been adapted – it must have cost millions – for this single moment.

And nobody had guessed. The police and the army had been searching all over London, examining every structure at least a hundred metres high. But the dishes had been hidden – at ground level. Only now would the hot-air balloon carry them above the city. Certainly someone would notice it. But by the time they made their way to this desolate area, it would be too late. The dishes would have done their work. Thousands of children would have died.

And Alex would be one of them. Mrs Rothman hadn’t killed him, because she had no need to. She had said it herself: he was already dead.

“Raise the balloon.” Mrs Rothman gave the order in a soft voice. But her words were quite clear in the vast space of the church.

The burner under the envelope was alight, sending a red and blue flame shooting up. Two men darted forward and pulled the release mechanism, and at once the platform began to rise. The entire roof had disappeared. It was as if the oratory had been peeled open like an exotic fruit. There was more than enough room for the balloon to begin its journey, and Alex watched it float smoothly up, travelling in a straight line, as if this had been rehearsed. There was no wind. Even the weather seemed to be on Scorpia’s side.

Alex looked around him. His face was still smarting where Mrs Rothman had slapped him but he ignored the pain. He was horribly aware of the seconds ticking away, but there was nothing he could do. Nile was watching him with as much hatred as he had ever seen in a man’s face. The two samurai swords protruded just above his shoulders, and Alex knew he was itching to use them. He had betrayed Scorpia and, worse, he had betrayed Nile. He had humiliated the man in front of Julia Rothman, and for that Nile would make him pay by cutting him to pieces. He needed only the tiniest excuse. The two armed guards still flanked Alex. Others watched him from the gantries and their positions at the entrance. He was helpless.

And where were MI6? He glanced at the broken pieces of the brace. He wished now that he had activated the trigger the moment he had seen the church. But how could he have known? How could anyone have known?

“Alex, before you die, there’s something I want to tell you,” Mrs Rothman confided.

“I’m not interested,” Alex replied.

“Oh, I think you will be, my dear. Because, you see, it’s about your father. And your mother. There’s something you ought to know.”

Alex didn’t want to hear it. And he had come to a decision. He was going to die – but he wouldn’t just stand there. Somehow he was going to hurt Julia Rothman. She had lied to him; she had
manipulated him. Worse, she had almost made him betray everything he believed in. She had tried to make him part of Scorpia, like his father. But whatever his father had been, he would never be the same.

Alex tensed, about to throw himself at her, wondering if Nile would cut him down before the guards’ bullets did.

And then one of the windows shattered and something exploded inside the church. Thick smoke billowed out, spreading across the black and white tiles, devouring everything. At the same time came the chatter of machine-gun fire and a second explosion, this one outside. Julia Rothman staggered and fell sideways. Nile twisted round, the white blotches on his face suddenly more livid than ever, his eyes wide and staring.

Alex moved.

He lashed out at the guard on his left, swinging his elbow into the man’s stomach and feeling the bone sink into soft flesh. The man doubled up. The other guard turned and Alex pivoted on one foot, kicking hard with the other. His heel smashed into the barrel of the man’s machine gun a fraction before it fired. Alex felt the bullets pass over his shoulder and heard a scream as one of the other guards was hit. Well, that made one less anyway! He charged, head down, and slammed into the man like a maddened bull. The guard cried out. Alex punched upwards, his fist driving into the man’s
throat. The guard was thrown off his feet and sent crashing to the floor.

Alex was free.

Everything was confused. Smoke coiled and twisted. More machine-gun fire, another explosion. Alex saw the balloon rise slowly above the church. It hadn’t been hit; it had passed through the gaping roof and was continuing its journey up into the London sky. Suddenly he knew that whatever happened down here, that was where he had to be. The balloon carried equipment that was set to automatic. MI6 were here. They might invade the church and capture Julia Rothman; they might bring the balloon back down. But there could only be minutes left. It might already be too late.

There was only one thing Alex could do. The balloon was trailing the two ropes that would act as anchors when the platform reached the correct height. Alex sprinted towards them. A man blocked his way and Alex automatically dropped him with a roundhouse kick. He grabbed the nearest rope and felt a jerk as the balloon lifted him off the ground.

“Stop him!” Mrs Rothman screamed.

She had seen him but the smoke was still cloaking him from the other guards. There was a burst of machine-gun fire but it missed, slicing the rope a few metres below his feet. Alex looked down and saw that the ground was already quite a long way away. And then he was pulled out of the church, up into the open air, leaving Nile, Mrs Rothman
and the swirling chaos behind.

Half blinded by the smoke and shocked by the suddenness of the attack, Mrs Rothman had to waste precious seconds forcing herself to calm down. She strode over to the television monitors, trying to make sense of the situation. She could see soldiers in black combat dress, their faces covered by helmets, taking up positions outside the church. Well, she could deal with them in her own time. Right now, the boy was all that mattered.

“Nile!” she snapped. “Get after him!”

Nile had been hit by flying fragments of glass from the first explosion. For once he seemed slow to react, confused.

“Now!” she screamed.

Nile moved. One rope still hung down, shivering in front of him. He grabbed hold of it and, like Alex, was jerked into the air.

The platform was now forty metres above ground level. It had another sixty metres to travel before the dishes would activate. The extra weight – Alex on one rope, Nile on the other – had slowed it down. But the burner was still heating the air inside the envelope. A digital display on one of the metal boxes was flickering and changing, measuring the distance. Forty-one … forty-two. The machines knew nothing of what was taking place below. That didn’t matter. They would do what they had been designed for. The dishes were waiting for the signal to start transmitting.

The balloon continued to rise. There were just four minutes left.

Mrs Jones had acted immediately. There had been five SAS teams on permanent standby in different parts of London, and as soon as Alex’s signal had been received, she had alerted the team nearest to him, with the other four moving in as back-up.

Eight men were slowly closing in on the church – all of them dressed in full combat gear, including flameproof black overalls, belt kits, body armour, Kevlar vests and Mk 6 combat helmets complete with throat mikes. They were carrying a variety of weapons. Most of them had a Sig 9mm pistol strapped to their thigh. One had a sawn-off pump-action shotgun which would be used to blast open the church doors. Others carried axes, knives, Maglites and flashbang grenades; and each man was equipped with the same high-powered semiautomatic sub-machine gun, the Heckler & Koch 9mm MP5, the favourite assault weapon of the SAS. As they spread out across the seemingly empty street, they barely looked human. They could have been radio-controlled robots, sent from some future war.

They knew that the church was their target but this operation was every soldier’s nightmare. Normally, when the SAS go in, they will have been briefed by the police and regular army. They will have access to a huge computer database
giving them vital information about the building they’re about to attack: the thickness of its walls, the position of windows and doors. If no information is available, they can still produce a three-dimensional computer image by simply inputting whatever details they can see outside. But this time there was nothing. The Church of Forgotten Saints was a blank. And there were only minutes left.

Their instructions were clear. Find Alex Rider and get him out. Find the dishes and destroy them. But even after everything that had happened, Alan Blunt had made sure they understood their priorities. The dishes mattered more.

The soldiers had arrived just in time to see the dome open and the balloon start to appear above the church. They were too late. If they had come equipped with Stingers – heat-seeking missiles – they could have brought it down. But this was the middle of London. They were prepared for what was essentially a hostage situation. They hadn’t counted on a full-out war.

The balloon rose in front of their eyes and they were unable to stop it. They could see at once that they needed to get onto the roof of the oratory, but first they had to reach it. One of the men made a snap decision and shot a 94mm HEAT warhead rocket from a plastic firing tube. The missile looped towards the balloon but fell short, smashing through an upper window and detonating
inside the church. This was the explosion that had given Alex his chance.