Alex Rider had been shown into another room and left to shower and change into fresh clothes. He recognized the Pepe jeans and World Cup rugby shirt: they were his own. Somebody must have been round to his home to fetch them, and seeing them laid out on a chair he felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t spoken to Jack since he had left for Venice. He wondered if anyone from MI6 had told her what was happening. He doubted it. MI6 never told anyone anything unless they had to.
But as he pulled on the jeans, he felt something rustle in one of the back pockets. He dipped his hand in and took out a folded sheet of paper. He opened it and recognized Jack’s handwriting.
Alex,
What have you got yourself mixed up in this time? Two secret agents (spies) waiting downstairs. Suits and sunglasses. Think they’re smart, but I bet they don’t look in the pockets.
Thinking of you. Take care of yourself. Try and come home in one piece.
Love you,
Jack
That made him smile. It seemed it had been a long time since anything had happened to cheer him up.
As he had thought, the cell and interrogation room were beneath the MI6 headquarters. He was led out to a car park where a navy blue Jaguar XJ6 was waiting, and the two of them were driven up the ramp and out into Liverpool Street itself. Alex settled into the leather seat. He found it strange to be sitting so close to the head of MI6 Special Operations without a table or a desk between them.
Blunt was in no mood to talk.
“You’ll be brought up to date at the meeting,” he muttered briefly. “But while we’re driving there, I want you to think of everything that happened to you while you were with Scorpia. Everything you overheard. If I had more time, I’d debrief you myself. But Cobra won’t wait.”
After that he buried himself in a report which he took from his briefcase, and Alex might as well have been alone. He looked out of the window as the chauffeur drove them west, across London. It was quarter past nine. People were still hurrying to work. Shops were opening. On one side of the glass, life was going on as normal. But once again Alex was on the wrong side, sitting in this car with this man, heading into God knows what.
He watched as they arrived at Charing Cross and stopped at the lights at Trafalgar Square. Blunt was still reading. Suddenly there was something Alex wanted to know.
“Is Mrs Jones married?” he asked.
Blunt looked up. “She was.”
“In her flat I saw a photograph of her with two children.”
“They were hers. They’d be about your age now. But she lost them.”
“They died?”
“They were taken.”
Alex digested this. Blunt’s replies were leaving him hardly any the wiser. “Are you married?” he asked.
Blunt turned away. “I don’t discuss my personal life.”
Alex shrugged. Frankly he was surprised Blunt had one.
They drove down Whitehall and then turned right, through the gates that were already open to receive them. The car stopped and Alex got out, his head spinning. He was standing in front of probably the most famous front door in the world. And the door was open. A policeman stepped forward to usher him in. Blunt had already disappeared ahead. Alex followed.
The first surprise was how large 10 Downing Street was inside. It was two or three times bigger than he had expected, opening out in all directions, with high ceilings and a corridor stretching improbably into the distance. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Works of art, lent by major galleries, lined the walls.
Blunt had been greeted by a tall, grey-haired man in an old-fashioned suit and striped tie. The man had the sort of face that would not have looked out of place in a Victorian portrait. It belonged to another world, and like an old painting it seemed to have faded. Only the eyes, small and dark, showed any life. They flickered over Alex and seemed to know him at once.
“So this is Alex Rider,” the man said. He held out a hand. “My name is Graham Adair.”
He was looking at Alex as if he knew him – but Alex was sure the two of them had never met before.
“Sir Graham is permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office,” Blunt explained.
“I’ve heard a great deal about you, Alex. I have to say, I’m pleased to meet you. I owe you a great deal. More, I think, than you can imagine.”
“Thanks.” Alex was puzzled. He didn’t know what Sir Graham meant, and wondered if the man had been involved in some way in one of his previous assignments.
“I understand you’re joining us at Cobra. I’m very glad – although I should warn you that there may be one or two people there who know less about you and may resent your presence.”
“I’m used to it,” Alex said.
“I’m sure. Well, come this way. I hope you can help us. We’re up against something very different and none of us is quite sure what to do.”
Alex followed the permanent secretary along the corridor, through an archway and into a large, wood-panelled room with at least forty people gathered around a huge conference table. Alex’s first impression was that they were all middle-aged and, with only a few exceptions, male and white. Then he realized how many faces he recognized. The prime minister was sitting at the head of the table. The deputy prime minister – fat and jowly – was next to him. The foreign secretary was fiddling nervously with his tie. Another man who might have been the defence secretary was opposite him. Most of the men were in suits but there were also uniforms – army and police. Everyone in the room had a thick file in front of them. Two elderly women, dressed in black suits and white shirts, sat in the corners, their fingers poised over what looked like miniature typewriters.
Blunt waved Alex to an empty chair at the table and sat down next to him. Sir Graham took his seat on the other side. Alex noticed a few heads turn in his direction but nobody said anything.
The prime minister stood and Alex felt the same buzz he’d experienced when he first met Damian Cray – the realization that he was seeing, close up, a face known all over the world. The prime minister looked older and shabbier than he did on television. Here there was no make-up, no subtle lighting. He looked defeated.
“Good morning,” he said, and everyone in the room fell silent.
The meeting of Cobra had begun.
REMOTE CONTROL
They had been talking for three hours.
The prime minister had read out the contents of Scorpia’s letter, and copies had been placed in every file around the table. Alex had read his with a feeling of sick disbelief. Eighteen innocent people had already died and nobody in the room had any idea how it had happened. Would Scorpia go ahead with the threat to target children in London? Alex was in no doubt, but nobody had asked his opinion and the first hour had been taken up discussing the question over and over again. At least half the people in the room thought it was a bluff. The other half wanted to put pressure on the Americans – to make them agree to Scorpia’s demands.
But there was no chance of that happening. The foreign secretary had already met with the American ambassador. The prime minister had spent several hours on the telephone with the president of the United States. This was the American position: Scorpia were asking the impossible. The Americans considered their demands to be laughable, quite possibly insane. The president had offered the help of the FBI to track Scorpia down. Two hundred American agents were already on their way to London. But there was nothing more he could do. Britain was on its own.
This response caused a great deal of anger at Cobra. The deputy prime minister crashed his fist against the table.
“It’s incredible! It’s a bloody scandal. We help the Americans; we’re their closest allies. And now they turn round and tell us to jump in the lake!”
“That’s not quite what they’ve said.” The foreign secretary was more cautious. “And I don’t know what else they could do. The president has a point. These demands are impossible.”
“They could try to negotiate!”
“But th
e letter says there will be no negotiation—”
“That’s what it says. But they could still try!”
Alex listened as the two men argued, neither really listening to what the other had to say. So this was how government worked!
Next up was a medical officer with a report on how the footballers had died.
“They were all poisoned,” he announced. He was a short man, bald, with a round, pink face. He had put on a crumpled suit for the meeting but somehow Alex could tell he spent most of his life in a white coat. “We found traces of cyanide which seem to have been delivered straight to the heart. The amounts were very small – but they were enough.”
“How were they administered?” someone – a police chief – asked.
“We don’t yet know. They hadn’t been shot, that’s for sure. There were no unexplained perforations on their skin and there’s only one thing we’ve come up with that’s rather odd. We found tiny traces of gold in their blood.”
“Gold?” The director of communications spoke for the first time and Alex noticed him sitting next to the prime minister. He was the smallest – and in many ways seemed to be the least imposing – man in the room. And yet, at his single word, every head turned.
“Yes, Mr Kellner. We don’t believe the gold particles contributed to their death. But every single one of the players was the same.”
“Well, it all seems pretty obvious to me,” Kellner said, and there was a sneer in his voice. He stood up and looked around the crowded table with cold, superior eyes. Alex disliked him at once. He had seen kids like him at Brookland. Small and spiteful, always winding people up. But running in tears to the teachers the moment they got whacked. “All these people died at exactly the same time,” he continued. “So it’s pretty obvious they were all poisoned at the same time. When could that have been? Well, obviously when they were on the plane! I’ve already checked. The flight lasted six hours and thirty-five minutes and they were given a meal shortly after they left Lagos. There must have been cyanide in the food and it kicked in just after they arrived at Heathrow.”
“Are you saying there is no secret weapon?” the deputy prime minister asked. He blinked heavily. “What do Scorpia mean by Invisible Sword then?”
“It’s a trick. They’re trying to make us think they can kill people by some sort of remote control…”
Remote control. That meant something to Alex. He remembered something he had seen when he’d been inside the Widow’s Palace. What was it?
“… but there is no Invisible Sword. They’re just trying to frighten us.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you, Mr Kellner.” The medical officer seemed nervous of the director of communications. “They could all have taken the poison at the same time, I suppose. But each one of those men had his own metabolism. The poison would have reacted more quickly in some than in others.”
“They were all athletes. Their metabolisms would have been more or less the same.”
“No, Mr Kellner. I don’t agree. There were also two coaches and a manager…”
“To hell with them. There is no Invisible Sword. These people are playing games with us. They make demands they know the Americans can’t possibly meet, and they threaten us with something that simply isn’t going to happen.”
“That isn’t normally Scorpia’s way.”
Alex was surprised to see that it was Blunt who had spoken. The head of MI6 Special Operations was sitting on his left. His voice was quiet and very even.
“We’ve had dealings with them before and they’ve never yet made a hollow threat.”
“You were at Heathrow, Mr Blunt. What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s very helpful, isn’t it? Secret intelligence comes to the table and doesn’t have any intelligence to offer. And since you’re here” – Mark Kellner seemed to have noticed Alex for the first time – “I’d be fascinated to know why you’ve brought along a schoolboy. Is he your son?”
“This is Alex Rider.” This time it was Sir Graham Adair who spoke. His dark eyes settled on the director of communications. “As you know, Alex has helped us on several occasions. He also happens to be the last person to have had contact with Scorpia.”
“Really? And how was that?”
“I sent him to Venice, undercover,” Blunt said, and Alex was surprised at how fluently he lied. “Scorpia have a training school on the island of Malagosto and we needed to know certain details. Alex trained there for a while.”
One of the politicians coughed. “Is that really necessary, Mr Blunt?” he asked. “I mean, if it was known that the government was using school-age children for this sort of work, it might not look very good for us.”
“I hardly think that’s relevant right now,” Blunt retorted.
The police chief looked puzzled. He was an elderly man in a blue uniform with brightly polished silver buttons. “If you know about Scorpia, if you even know where to find them, why can’t you take them out?” he asked. “Why can’t we just send in the SAS and kill the whole lot of them?”
“The Italian government might not be too amused to have their territory invaded,” Blunt replied. “And anyway, it’s not as simple as that. Scorpia’s a worldwide organization. We know some of the leaders, but not all of them. If we eliminate one branch, another one will simply take over the operation. And then they’ll come for revenge. Scorpia never forgive or forget. You have to remember: they may be the ones who are threatening us, but they’ll be working for a client and it is the client who is our real enemy.”
“And what did Alex Rider find out when he was on Malagosto?” Kellner sneered. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be knocked off his pedestal. Not by Alan Blunt. And certainly not by a fourteen-year-old boy.
Alex felt all eyes on him. He shifted uncomfortably. “Mrs Rothman took me out for dinner and she mentioned Invisible Sword,” he said. “But she wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
“Who exactly is Julia Rothman?” Kellner demanded.
“She sits on the executive board of Scorpia,” Blunt said. “She is one of nine senior members. Alex met her when he was in Italy.”
“Well, that’s very helpful,” Kellner said. “But if that’s all Alex has to offer, we really don’t need him here any more.”
“There was something about a cold chain,” Alex added, remembering the conversation he had overheard at the Widow’s Palace. “I don’t know what that means, but it may have something to do with it.”
In one corner of the room a young, smartly dressed woman with long, black hair sat up in her chair and looked at Alex with sudden interest.
But Kellner had already moved on. “We’re being asked to believe that Scorpia can somehow poison thousands of children and arrange for them all to keel over at exactly four o’clock tomorrow afternoon…”
“They’ll all be coming out of school,” one of the army men said. “It can’t be done! The football squad was a stunt. They want to panic us into going public with this, and if we do that the entire credibility of the government will be undermined. Maybe that’s what they want.”
“Then what are you suggesting we do?” Sir Graham Adair asked. The permanent secretary was trying hard to keep the contempt out of his voice. He remembered what he had seen at Heathrow Airport; he didn’t want to see it again all over London.
“Ignore them. Tell them to get lost.”
“We can’t!” Like almost everyone else, the foreign secretary was clearly afraid of Kellner. But he was determined to have his say. “We can’t take that risk!”
“There is no risk. Think about it for a minute. The footballers were poisoned with cyanide. They were all on the same plane at the same time. It wasn’t difficult. But if you wanted to poison thousands of kids, how could you possibly do it?”
“Injections,” Alex said.
Everyone looked at him again.
He had worked it out in a split second. It had suddenly come to him, as if s
poken by someone else. He had been thinking about a trip he had once made to South America, a long time ago. And then he had remembered what he had seen at Consanto. The little test tubes. All that machinery … everything utterly sterile. What was it for? Now he understood the link with Dr Liebermann. And there was something else. When he was in the restaurant with Julia Rothman, she had made a joke about the scientist.
You could say his death was a shot in the arm for us all.
A shot in the arm. An injection.
“Every schoolchild in London gets injected at some point,” Alex said. He was aware that he was now the centre of attention. The prime minister, half the Cabinet, the police and army chiefs, the civil servants – all the most powerful people in the country were here, in this room. He was surrounded by them. And they were all listening to him. “When I was at Consanto, I saw test tubes with liquid in them,” he went on. “And there were trays with what looked like eggs.”
“Some vaccines are grown in eggs,” the medical officer explained. “And Consanto do supply vaccines all over the world.” He nodded as he was struck by another thought. “That would also explain what you heard. Of course! The cold chain. It refers to the transportation of vaccines. They have to be kept at a certain temperature all the time. If you break the chain, the vaccine is no use.”
“Go on, Alex,” Sir Graham Adair urged.
“I saw them kill a man called Dr Liebermann,” Alex said. “He worked at Consanto and Julia Rothman told me she’d paid him a lot of money to help them with something. Maybe he put something in a whole load of vaccines. Some sort of poison. It would be injected into school kids. There are always injections at the start of term…”
Adair glanced at the medical officer, who nodded. “It’s true. There were BCG injections in London last week.”
“Last week!” Mark Kellner cut in. His tone of voice hadn’t changed; he wasn’t accepting any of it. “If they were injected with cyanide a week ago, how come they haven’t all dropped dead already? How is this Julia Rothman going to arrange for the poison to work tomorrow afternoon on the dot of four?” A few heads around the table nodded in agreement and he went on. “And I don’t suppose the football squad had BCG injections while they were away. Or are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”