Ali Manzour had gotten out of one of the jeeps and had picked his way across the rubble to the place where the helicopter pilot was waiting. He crouched down and Alex heard a few soft words, spoken in Arabic. There was silence, followed by a sudden scream. Standing next to Alex, Joe Byrne grimaced and looked away.
A moment later, Manzour walked over to them, wiping blood off his hands with his handkerchief. At the same time, two of his men dragged the unfortunate pilot away. “It’s just as well we asked,” he said. “The password is
Selket
. It is certainly appropriate. Selket is an ancient Egyptian goddess of death. She is also known as the scorpion goddess.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t lying to you?” Byrne asked.
“He did lie to me.” Manzour folded the handkerchief and put it away. “But then I asked him a second time and he told me the truth.” He turned to Alex. “Everything now depends on you, my friend. But I ask you again, as the father of two sons, you are quite certain you are prepared for this?”
Alex nodded.
“Then I wish you success.”
The twelve men climbed into the helicopter, arranging themselves with the Americans on one side and the Egyptians on the other, like opposing baseball teams. Unit 777 had also provided a pilot to fly them into the desert. Joe Byrne shook hands with Alex. “Take care, Alex,” he said. “You look after yourself.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Alex said.
Alex climbed into the helicopter. The blades began to turn, picked up speed, and finally became a blur. The helicopter rose into the air. Byrne was left standing next to Manzour.
“So that is the famous Alex Rider,” Manzour muttered.
“That’s right,” Byrne said.
“It is not my place to say it, but I think that something very bad has happened to that child. Did you see it in his eyes?”
Byrne nodded. He had already put a call in to Alan Blunt in London and the two of them would speak as soon as Alex returned . . . assuming, of course, that he did. Alex had told him not to worry. But he was very worried indeed.
He watched the helicopter until it had disappeared into the night. Then Ali Manzour clapped a hand on his shoulder and the two men returned to the waiting cars.
23
A PINCH OF SALT
THE HELICOPTER SHUDDERED through the night sky, carrying its load of twelve silent men and one boy. As it reached the edge of Cairo, the streetlights fell away and suddenly it was alone with the stars. Alex was sitting at the very front, closest to the pilot, and looking out through the cockpit window. He was aware of the desert, vast and empty, an infinite blackness below. He slumped back and perhaps he dozed off—there was little difference between being asleep and being awake—with the rotors beating out their progress, hammering in his ears.
And then someone was tapping his arm and he knew that they were there. How much time had passed? It couldn’t have been more than half an hour.
Lewinsky stood in front of him and Alex could see the tension in his eyes. This was the moment of truth. The fort with all its defense systems was close by. If the original pilot had lied to them, they were all dead.
The radio crackled into life. A voice rapped out a single sentence, speaking in Arabic. The pilot replied with one word.
“Selket.”
A long pause. They seemed to be hovering in midair, as if they had come to a standstill. Then more instructions. The pilot visibly relaxed. They had been given clearance to land.
Looking out, Alex could see the fort, illuminated by hundreds of bulbs. The whole place was a hive of activity as Razim prepared to make his getaway. There were men crisscrossing the courtyard, carrying files and boxes out of the various storerooms and loading up the Land Rovers and open-top trucks that were parked in a long line. Nobody was going to be allowed any sleep tonight. Guards were patrolling the parapets and the rope walkway. All four towers were manned. The huge gates were closed and there were more armed men already watching the helicopter as it swept down out of the sky.
And abruptly night became day as two spotlights crashed on, slanting up into the sky from opposite corners of the fort, capturing the helicopter between them. Brilliant light blazed into the cabin. Lewinsky winced, covering his eyes. But the light gave Alex an idea. The helicopter was expected. It was being watched. He knew that Razim would be nervous, wondering about the long silence. Well, he would give him a signal, set his mind at rest.
Alex unbuckled himself and got up. The door of the helicopter was operated by a heavy lever and he pulled it down, then slid the door open, allowing the blast of the engines and the desert heat to come rushing in. One of the CIA men called out to him, but Alex ignored him. He knew what he was doing and he was certain that Razim would be watching. Holding on to a strap that dangled from the ceiling, he leaned out of the helicopter, into the light, and waved at the fort, grinning as if he had just done something very clever. This was how Julius Grief would have behaved. He wouldn’t have waited for the helicopter to land.
Lewinsky understood what he was doing and nodded his approval. Alex gesticulated at the pilot, directing him toward the area of sand that had been hardened to create a safe landing pad. He saw the main gate swing slowly open and a jeep burst out toward them. So far so good. The password had worked and perhaps Alex had been seen. Razim was turning off his defenses, inviting them in. There was a slight jolt as the helicopter touched down. The pilot turned the engine off. Lewinsky got up and came over to him, taking care to keep out of sight.
“We’ll give you ten minutes.” He still had to shout over the whine of the engine. “Then we’re coming in.”
Alex nodded.
The Sikorsky had landed about two hundred yards from the gate. Alex jumped down onto the sand and waited for the jeep to arrive. It was being driven by a bearded man in long robes and a headdress. Alex recognized him as the guard who had brought him food on the night he had been captured. He pulled up and Alex got in.
“Where are the others?” the driver asked. He must have been referring to Gunter and the pilot. He couldn’t possibly know that there were twelve armed men waiting in the Sikorsky.
“Take me to Razim,” Alex commanded. The driver hesitated. “Now!”
The driver was used to obeying orders. He shoved the gearshift forward and they set off, bouncing across the track. The gates were still open. No one had any idea that anything was wrong. They entered the compound, passing the prison block where Alex and Jack had been held, heading toward Razim’s house. Alex noticed the old bakery that was also the control center. He had hoped that the door would be open, but it was closed—presumably locked—and there were no windows. He could see light showing through the cracks in the wood. There was someone inside. Even now, they might be turning on the mines that surrounded the fort, and if anyone inside the helicopter so much as sneezed, motion and sound detectors would instantly pick them up.
The jeep pulled in. Alex threw open the door and leapt out.
“Julius!”
Razim had come out of his house, a cigarette in his hand, the smoke capturing the glow of the electric lights as it curled upward. He was wearing Western dress—jeans, a loose shirt, and sandals. Perhaps this was part of a new identity, but the round glasses and close-cropped silver hair were unmistakable. The two of them met on the terrace with the stone lion and the terra-cotta pots. This was where they had had breakfast. Razim examined Alex with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.
“What happened?” he snapped. “I was expecting to hear from you an hour ago.”
So Julius had been given instructions to radio in before he left Cairo. Alex couldn’t have known that.
“She’s dead,” Alex said. He didn’t want to talk too much to begin with. He was afraid of giving himself away.
“The secretary of state is in the hospital. I heard it on the radio. But they didn’t say she was dead.”
“Then they’re lying.” Alex tapped the middle of his forehead with a finger. “I hit her here.”
“And Rider?”
Still acting as Julius, Alex smirked. “He begged for mercy. He was crying at the end. But Gunter let me watch when he killed him, and that’s what I did.”
“Where is Gunter?”
“In the helicopter.”
“Why didn’t he come with you?”
“I don’t know, Razim. What’s the matter? I thought you’d be pleased.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw the main doors begin to swing shut, the two halves folding toward each other. They moved slowly and he knew it would take them a full minute to close. That gave him a minute to act. He turned his back on Razim and began to saunter away.
“Where are you going?” Razim was uneasy. He might not have guessed who he was really talking to. But there was some inner sense, some instinct that was shouting its warnings. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I’m going to bed.”
“We’re not going to bed. We’re leaving.”
“Then I’ll get my things.”
“But that’s not the way to your room!”
And that was what gave him away. Perhaps Julius had been staying in Razim’s house. But Alex was walking in the opposite direction, heading past the well.
“Julius!” Razim called one last time.
Alex didn’t know what to do. Should he just ignore him or turn around and continue to bluff it out? Julius Grief would have been angry. He would have expected rewards and congratulations—not an interrogation. The bakery was right ahead of him. The chimney stood out in all the electric light. There were guards all around, but so far none of them had shown any interest in him.
“Stop him!” The two words came cutting across the courtyard. Almost immediately, Razim repeated them in Arabic. He had guessed what had happened. He knew that he had been tricked. Right in front of Alex, standing between him and the control room, two guards twisted around, untangling their weapons. The gap between the two main doors was narrowing one inch at a time. In half a minute they would meet, cutting Alex off.
He had no choice. He broke into a run, veering around the well and away from the control room. The outer wall was right in front of him with a flight of stone stairs leading up. He took them two at a time. At the same time, his hand came out of his pocket. He was holding the grenade that had been there from the moment he had left the helicopter. He had already worked the ring loose with his index finger. He heard two shots and almost felt the bullets as they thudded into the steps just behind him. Who was shooting? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore except for finishing this business once and for all. There were guards running toward him from every direction. Everyone was shouting. An alarm had gone off, jangling in the night air. Alex was utterly focused on what he had to do. Two more steps and he reached the top, standing on the parapet with the fort on one side of him, the desert on the other. A third shot whipped past his shoulder. He was horribly exposed. Everything depended on what happened next.
The bakery was below him, but he was on the same level as the chimney, about five yards away. He could see the square opening and could imagine the brickwork running all the way down to the oven. He knew he only had this one chance. There was a second grenade in his other pocket, but he would never get the chance to throw it. How much time did he have left? How long had it been since he had pulled out the pin? He put all the noise out of his head. The shouting, the clang of the alarm, the gunshots. He was back at school. Tossing a Coke can into a bin. Easy. Nothing to it.
He threw the grenade, saw it arc through the air, knew that it was going to find its target, that it couldn’t miss.
The grenade disappeared into the chimney without even touching the brickwork.
It took so long for the explosion to happen that Alex was afraid that something had gone wrong, that the grenade he had been given was faulty. He was just scrabbling for the second one when the blast came. The door of the control room was blown off from inside and a great blast of fire and smoke rushed out into the courtyard. All the lights went out and the darkness of the Sahara threw itself onto the fort like a magician’s cloak. Alex threw himself down as a machine gun opened fire, splattering the brickwork behind him. But even as he rolled, he saw that the main gates hadn’t quite met, that they were frozen with a gap in between. He knew that Lewinsky and the others would have heard the grenade go off and that they would already be out of the helicopter, crossing the desert. If he could survive for a minute longer, he would no longer be on his own.
His eyes had already gotten used to the darkness. The fort was illuminated by the moon and the stars—but also by the flames coming from the bakery. Alex twisted around and saw Razim coming toward him, already halfway up the staircase. He was holding a gun. His whole body was bathed in a red glow. He had once promised to send Alex to hell and now he looked like the devil himself. There was a crackle of machine-gun fire from the main gate. Somebody screamed. The Egyptians and the American agents had arrived.
But it wasn’t over yet. Razim was climbing, closing in on him. Suddenly the night shimmered and white light washed over the parapet as a backup generator kicked in. Alex was in full sight. He reached behind him and brought out the Tokarev that he had taken from Gunter. It had already served him well and he had demanded it back from Ali Manzour. Somehow it seemed right. It was the only gun Alex had ever called his own. He had wanted it with him at the end.