And with a surge of panic that he couldn’t hold back, Alex knew what they were going to do. He knew what this was called. Waterboarding. It was a method of torture that American soldiers had supposedly used in Guantánamo Bay, one that they favored because it left no bruises or signs of injury. And yet it was horribly effective. Alex had read somewhere that a grown man was unlikely to last more than fourteen seconds before he begged to tell his inquisitors everything.
Effectively, they were going to drown him.
“I want to know why you’re here and what really happened on that boat.” Lewinsky’s voice was muffled. It came out of nowhere.
“I’ve told you!” Alex shouted through the cloth.
“You haven’t told me anything. But you will . . .”
Alex felt the extra weight as a towel was laid across his face. Desperately he shook his head from side to side, trying to throw it off, but then two hands clamped down on him, holding him still. Alex’s hands curled. All the muscles in his legs and abdomen loosened as sheer terror took control. And then the first drops of water were poured onto the towel. He felt the dampness against his face and then, immediately afterward, the first symptoms of suffocation. He couldn’t breathe. Worse than that. His lungs were tearing themselves apart, his whole body trying to swallow itself. He was going mad.
“What the hell is going on in here? What do you think you’re doing?”
It was a new voice, coming from somewhere miles away. Alex tried to scream. No sound came out. He honestly thought he was about to die.
“Get that thing off him!”
There was a hand scrabbling at his face. The towel had gone. The mask was torn off and light and air hit him at the same time. Alex was gasping. His mouth was wide open. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to survive a second more.
A man loomed over him, and at that moment Alex knew exactly where he was and who these people were. He would almost have laughed if he hadn’t still been in shock. Of course he should have recognized the sign. In Miami, they had been Centurion International Advertising. In New York it was Creative Ideas Animation. And here—Cairo Islamic Authority. Always the same initials. CIA. The man’s name was Joe Byrne. He was black, in his sixties, with white hair and the earnest, caring face of a family doctor about to give bad news. Alex had met with him twice before and, despite everything, knew him as a decent man, one who was usually on his side.
“Alex, I don’t know what to say,” Byrne exclaimed. The belts had already been untied and Alex had been helped to sit upright. “I only just heard what was going on.”
“Sir—,” Lewinsky began.
“Save it for the court-martial, Lewinsky,” Byrne snapped. “God in heaven! What did you three think you were doing? This is a kid!”
“He’s a British spy!” Lewinsky insisted.
“He’s on our side. He’s helped us on two separate occasions. If it wasn’t for Alex Rider, Washington, DC, would no longer be there. Get out of here! I don’t want to see you right now. I’ll talk to you later!” The three men left. Byrne turned back to Alex. “Are you feeling strong enough to get out of here?” he asked. “Or do you need more time?”
“I’m fine.” Alex was still in shock, but he slid himself off the table and picked up his shoes and socks.
Byrne waited until he’d put them on. “Let’s get some coffee in my office,” he suggested.
He led Alex out of the bell room and back to the elevator. This time they took it up to the ground floor, neither of them speaking. Alex guessed that Byrne was giving him a few moments to recover . . . or maybe he was still fuming with anger himself. This time the doors opened into a more comfortable area with a reception desk, potted plants, mirrors, and chandeliers. “We rent this place from the Egyptian government,” Byrne explained. “Half of it is pretty run-down, but the rest of it is fine for our needs. This way . . .”
Byrne’s office was on the same level, with smoked glass blocking the view outside. Alex remembered his office in Miami. This one was almost exactly the same, with fairly standard furniture, a thick-pile carpet, a picture of the American president on the wall. The CIA had offices all over the world and they were probably all identical. Byrne waved Alex to a seat, then picked up the phone and ordered two coffees. He sat down himself.
“First of all, I’m sorry about Blake Lewinsky,” Byrne began. “He’s not actually a bad agent, but this new breed . . . they’re young and they have no sense of proportion. Ever since 9/11, you only have to whisper the word terrorism and everyone starts behaving like Nazis or fascists. But this time he went too far. I swear to you, Alex, I’ll have him sent back to Langley and he’ll end up working in the canteen!”
“Forget it,” Alex said. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“He would have if I hadn’t arrived in time.” Byrne sighed. “I’m afraid there are some things I have to ask you . . .”
“There’s not much I can tell you,” Alex said. “But first I’d like to call Jack Starbright, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. Be my guest.”
Byrne handed Alex the phone and he dialed Jack’s mobile. It rang several times, then went to voice mail. That worried Alex. There were plenty of areas in Cairo where it was impossible to get a signal, but he wouldn’t be able to relax until he had spoken to her. “Jack,” he said. “It’s me. I’m okay. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.” He didn’t want to add any more with Byrne in the room. He hung up.
The door opened and a young woman came in with two cups of coffee and a plate of cookies. She set them down and left again.
“You know, Alex, I can’t believe you’re out here,” Byrne began. “Don’t tell me Alan Blunt persuaded you to work for him again!”
Alex didn’t answer. He trusted Byrne, but he also felt uneasy being trapped between two intelligence services. He would have to be careful what he said.
“So why are you here, Alex?”
“Why don’t you start by telling me what you’re up to?” Alex replied. “Why were your men watching the House of Gold? And who is Habib?”
“Did you meet with him?”
“No. One of your men asked me about him. But by the time I saw him, he was already dead.”
“You didn’t shoot him?” It was impossible to say if Byrne was joking or not.
“Of course I didn’t.”
Byrne nodded. “I believe you. This whole thing is a mess. It’s just a miracle that no one from that paddle ship was killed. Apart from Habib, that is.” He paused. “All right, Alex. I’ll tell you what’s going on. I guess I owe you that much. But if you’re involved—you and MI6—I want to know. Is that a deal?”
“Sure.” Alex helped himself to a coffee.
“Okay. We’re out here because the secretary of state is arriving this weekend. I don’t know how acquainted you are with American politics, but our secretary of state is like your foreign secretary. You could say she’s number two after the president . . . In fact, there are a lot of people who say she could be the next president. She’s outspoken and she’s hard-line but she’s also very popular. And she’s about to give a speech in Cairo.”
Byrne took his own coffee. He looked uncomfortable about what he was about to say, unsure whether he should give away his secrets, but then he made up his mind and went on. “This is all being hushed up at the moment, but the speech is all about power. Who are the big hitters in the world right now? When it comes to talking about the big issues—nuclear weapons, war, terrorism—who should be sitting at the top table? Up to now, it’s always been the Americans, you British, the Europeans, and so on. But there are new powers in the world. The Chinese. India. She thinks it’s time to make a few changes. And—you’re not going to like this, Alex—she doesn’t think the Brits have a place anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” Alex said.
“No, of course not. Why should it? But it’s going to make a lot of your politicians very angry. If you ask me, the secretary of state is pl
aying politics. It’s coming up to election time and there’s a lot of anti-British feeling in the States right now. You remember that big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? And then there was that secret deal with Libya. A speech like this is going to make all the right headlines . . . for her. She’s way out of line. Even the president has tried to draw her in. But she’s going ahead anyway.”
“How does Habib fit into this?”
“I’m coming to him. Our job is to protect the secretary of state while she’s in Cairo. It doesn’t matter what she’s doing or saying. That’s got nothing to do with us. We’re just here—we’ve been here for two weeks now—to look after her. And a few days ago we got a tip-off that somebody might take a shot at her, to prevent her from making the speech.”
“Habib?”
“That was just one of the names he used. Mostly he was just known as the Engineer. He sold weapons, Alex. Very precise, high-caliber weapons such as sniper rifles. Actually, he’d provide you with anything from a samurai sword to a hand grenade. But he was a craftsman. Everything he supplied was deadly accurate. Now do you begin to get the picture? We get a tip-off. We know that the Engineer is in town, so we start to watch him. And then, four days before our secretary of state is about to make a big anti-British speech, a British secret agent turns up and—boom—there’s an explosion and Habib is dead.”
Byrne slumped in his chair. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe he was feeling his age.
“I’m not saying that Blake Lewinsky was right, but perhaps it explains what he almost did to you. Habib was dead and he needed to know why.”
Alex’s mind was in a whirl. There was so much he had to take on board. The main question was—how much should he tell Joe Byrne?
First, Erik Gunter. When he’d left the boat, he’d been carrying a golf bag, and Alex had no doubt now that it must have had some sort of weapon inside. Was he here to assassinate the American secretary of state? And if so, who was paying him? Then there were the pictures he had seen in Gunter’s desk. He couldn’t show them to Byrne, as his iPhone had been destroyed by the Nile water. But the building, the room, the Washington Post . . . they must all be connected. And what about Cairo College itself? That was the reason he had been sent out here. It was the school, not some American politician, that was meant to be the target.
He needed to see Smithers. That was the important thing. Smithers could talk to Blunt and Blunt could talk to Byrne. Suddenly Alex felt an overwhelming desire to get out of Cairo. He didn’t understand why, but he didn’t like the way this was going. Not for the first time, he had a sense of invisible forces, of wheels within wheels. There was something happening here in Egypt that none of them understood.
“There’s not much I can tell you, Mr. Byrne.” Alex found himself talking before he even knew quite what he was going to say. “The reason I’m in Cairo has got nothing to do with your secretary of state. I was simply sent to keep an eye on the Cairo International College of Arts and Education in Sheikh Fayed City. There’s a possibility that some of the students there may be targeted . . . I don’t know much more than that. I was following their head of security, a man named Erik Gunter, and he led me to the House of Gold. I told Lewinsky this, but he didn’t believe me. Gunter was the last person to see Habib alive. I think he was the one who killed him, and if I were you I’d strap him down to your table and see where you get with the water torture and leave me alone.”
Alex stood up.
“And now I’d like to go home. I’m worried about Jack.”
Byrne nodded. “And I’d better put a call in to your Mr. Blunt,” he said. “By the way, I hear he’s on the way out.”
Alex was surprised to hear it. “He’s retiring?”
“Not by choice.” Byrne reached for the telephone. “I’ll get a car to take you home. Once again, I’m sorry about what happened.”
A few moments later, the woman who had brought the coffee came back in and led Alex out to the street. Joe Byrne stayed where he was, deep in thought. Despite all the evidence, he had never believed that there was a British plot to kill the secretary of state. Now, after what Alex had told him, he wondered if he should change his mind. For a start, there needed to be round-the-clock surveillance on this man Gunter. He would also raise the security to level red and order another search of the Assembly Hall, where the speech was taking place. It had been searched twice already and on Saturday night, twenty-four hours before the secretary of state arrived, it would be locked down completely.
The Assembly Hall. A huge domed building surrounded by palm trees in the middle of the University of Cairo. How could he ever hope to make such a place completely safe?
And what of Alex Rider? With a bit of luck, he’d be on the next plane back to England. Safely out of the picture. In fact, if the boy had had any sense, he would never have come at all.
15
PLAN A . . . PLAN B
JACK WAS WAITING FOR ALEX when he got back to Golden Palm Heights. In fact, she was out and running toward him before the CIA driver had even come to a halt. She half dragged him out of the car and into her embrace. “Alex? What happened to you? I’ve been so worried.” She pulled away from him. “Your clothes are all damp!”
“Yes. I took a dip in the Nile.”
“You were on the boat when—?” She didn’t want to put it into words. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw what had happened. For a minute I thought . . . Well, I didn’t know what to think. But then I got your message.”
The car with the CIA man moved off.
Jack noticed it as if for the first time. “Who was that?” she asked.
“It’s a long story, Jack. If you don’t mind, I’m going to have a shower and get changed first. I stink. And I don’t suppose you’ve got anything for supper? I’m starving.”
A short while later, Alex and Jack sat down to eat together on the balcony, allowing the warmth of the evening to wash over them. The sun hadn’t set yet but it was dipping behind the buildings, throwing soft shadows over the estate. The pool was empty. Alex knew that Craig and Simon and all the others would be inside by now, slumped over their homework. He wished that he had so little to worry about.
Alex had changed into a baggy T-shirt and shorts. His hair was still wet from the shower and there was a bandage on his knee. He wasn’t even sure when he’d scratched himself, but Jack had noticed it at once and had insisted on rubbing in half a tube of antiseptic cream. He had, after all, taken a dip in the Nile. It reminded Alex of all the times she had looked after him in the past. Some things never changed.
She had prepared an assortment of Egyptian dishes: hummus, olives, stuffed grape leaves, fried meatballs, and smoked aubergine—all served with warm aish baladi, or Egyptian flat bread. She was drinking chilled pink wine. Alex stuck to water.
“I was sitting outside the House of Gold, wondering what was going on, when I got your text,” she said. “I didn’t like the idea of leaving you, but I waited for Gunter to come out and I followed him like you told me to. He looked like he was going to play golf or something. He had a golf bag.”
“I know.”
“Well, he flagged down a taxi and I managed to get one just behind him. It was like being in a film. I followed him all the way across Cairo and I thought he might be going somewhere exciting, but in the end he went into an apartment just around the corner from here. I made a note of the address. I think it’s where he lives. Anyway, after that I wasn’t sure what to do, but I was worried about you, so I went all the way back to the House of Gold . . . except that it wasn’t there anymore. There were police everywhere and they were talking about a terrorist attack or something. My first thought was to call Mr. Smithers, but when I took out my mobile I saw that you’d called. I got your message and came back here.”
She poured herself another glass of wine. “Now it’s your turn. What happened on the boat? How did you escape? And who was the man in the car?”
Quickly, Alex told her about his own ordeal, starting wit
h the dead man in the antiques shop, the explosion, his capture by the CIA, and the bell room. He left out the waterboarding. He didn’t really want to relive the experience and he knew Jack would have been sickened. “That was a CIA car that brought me here,” he concluded. “At least they were decent enough to give me a lift.”
Jack shook her head. “This is absolutely typical of Mr. Blunt,” she said. “He promised us there wouldn’t be any danger, but we’ve already got dead bodies on boats, bombs, and political assassination. So what are we going to do?”
The question had been hanging in the air since he got back, and Alex had already been considering the answer. “I think it’s time to do what Mr. Byrne suggested,” he said. “We ought to leave.”
“Back to England?”
“I suppose so.” Alex had eaten enough. He put down his knife and fork and leaned back contentedly. In the distance he could hear insects of some sort—cicadas—that had already started up in the undergrowth. “I still don’t know what’s going on here, Jack,” he said. “And my cover’s been blown. There’s a boy here from Brookland who recognized me, and it can’t be long before people start asking questions. It’s all getting out of hand and I don’t want to be part of it.”
“Do you think the school’s under threat?”
“If I thought that, I’d stay. Cairo College is okay . . . even Miss Watson. But I’ve been there for almost three weeks and it all seems completely ordinary. The only reason we think it might be a target is because Mr. Blunt told us—and you’re right, we can’t believe a word he says. Anyway, after what happened today, it seems almost certain that he’s wrong.”
Alex went over it all in his head once again. But he couldn’t see any other possibility.
“Erik Gunter must be involved with this visit,” he said. “The American secretary of state. He’d been to see this big weapons dealer and that bag he was carrying . . .”
“It wasn’t golf clubs.”