Crocodile Tears (31 page)

The silence stretched out. Alex could actually smell the crocodiles; a deep, sickly odor of stale fish and decaying meat that rose up and crept into his nostrils. He was finding it difficult to breathe. The pain was getting worse and worse. All the muscles in his upper body were burning.

“I believe you,” McCain said at last. “You are telling the truth.”

“Then get rid of them!” Alex jerked his head down at the two crocodiles. They were silent now, as if they knew it was only a matter of time before they were given what they wanted.

Another long pause. Alex’s arms screamed.

“I’m afraid not,” McCain said.

“What?” Alex shouted the word.

“You have annoyed me very much, Alex. I tried to kill you when you were in Scotland, and it would have been a lot better if I had. Your activity at Greenfields very nearly brought an end to an operation that has taken me five years and a great deal of money to develop. Thanks to you, my name is now known to MI6, and that will make my future life more difficult. And, added to that, you are a very rude and unpleasant boy, and all in all, I think you deserve to die.” He turned to Myra Beckett. “I know you enjoy this, my love, so you can stay to the end. I’ll be interested to know how many minutes he manages to hang on before he falls. I somehow doubt that he’ll beat the record.”

The woman took out her mobile phone. “I’ll take photographs for you, Dezzy.”

McCain took one last look at Alex. “I hope you die painfully,” he said. “Because although you have not lived long, I really think you deserve a painful death.”

He signaled to the guards and the three of them walked away. But he had given his gun to Beckett. She was holding it in one hand, the mobile phone in the other. Behind him, Alex heard a splash. A third crocodile had launched itself into the river and was already wriggling its way across.

“Four minutes.” The woman glanced at her watch. “I do not think you will make it to five.”

And she was right. Everything was pain and with every second the pain was getting worse. Alex couldn’t swing himself to safety. He couldn’t climb. He couldn’t move. He could only fall.

He closed his eyes and knew that very soon he would do just that.

21

RAW DEAL

SEVEN MINUTES. MAYBE EIGHT MINUTES. Alex wasn’t even sure why he was hanging on anymore. The sooner he dropped, the sooner it would all be over. His whole body was racked by pain and his blood was pounding in his ears and behind his eyes. With every second that passed, the strength was draining out of his arms. He tried to accept what was about to happen: his fingers slipping out of the metal handles, the short fall down to the riverbank, the jarring impact, and then the final horror as the crocodiles attacked.

Myra Beckett leaned forward. “Do you have any last words?” she asked. “Any good-byes you want to make? I can record them for you.” She held out her mobile phone.

“Go rot in hell.” Alex’s eyes felt as if they were swollen shut, but he forced them open, staring straight at her.

“You are the one on the way to hell, my dear,” she said.

Her eyes widened. She took a step forward as if something had surprised her. Once again she opened her mouth and Alex thought she was about to speak, but instead, a stream of blood poured over her lower lip. A moment later, she pitched forward and fell and Alex glimpsed the hilt of a knife jutting out of the back of her neck. Desperately clinging onto the handles, he cork-screwed around and looked down. The woman had landed in the middle of the crocodiles. She was still alive. He heard her scream as she was torn apart, her arms and legs being pulled in three directions. He turned away. He couldn’t watch any more.

He was going to join her. His own strength was gone. He felt his fingers opening. But then suddenly there was a man on the observation platform, leaning out, reaching toward him, and even as he wondered where the man had come from, he knew that he had seen him somewhere before.

“Alex!” the man called. “Take my hand.”

“I can’t reach . . .”

“One effort. You can make it.”

The distance was too great. Alex would have to let go with one hand and throw himself sideways, reaching out with the other. If he miscalculated or if the man was tricking him, that would be it. The crocodiles would get a second feed.

“Now!” The man couldn’t shout. They were too close to the lodge. His voice was an urgent whisper.

Alex did as he was told, stretching as far as he could, using every muscle to propel his body away from the handles. The man was leaning out. And somehow, just when Alex was certain he would fall, they managed to lock together, wrist in hand and hand over wrist.

“Okay. I’ve got you. I’ll take your weight.”

Alex let go of the handle. He felt the man pull him toward the platform. Even so, there was one dreadful moment when he was sure they had overbalanced and they would fall together. He came crashing down. But he was right on the edge of the platform. He clawed at the wooden planks and managed to find some purchase. His legs were dangling below him, but then he pulled himself forward and rolled over on his side. He was lying next to the man who had just rescued him. He was safe.

For a few seconds he lay in silence, recovering his breath and waiting for his jangling nerves to calm down. Then he looked up. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Not now.” The man was Asian, young, with very dark skin and close-cropped hair, dressed in camouflage khakis with a harness for three knives slanting across his chest. One knife was missing.

Alex knew him at once. With a sense of astonishment he remembered where they had met before. It was the man from Loch Arkaig, the driver of the white van who had appeared from nowhere when he had crawled out of the freezing water. He had driven Alex, Sabina, and Edward Pleasure to the hospital. And now he was here! What sort of guardian angel was he, operating on two sides of the world?

“My name is Rahim,” the man said. “But now we must leave. When they find the woman is missing, they will come looking for her. Here . . . give me your shirt.”

Alex didn’t know what the man was thinking, but this was no time for an argument. He stripped off his school shirt and handed it over. Rahim took out a second knife and cut the shirt to shreds, then tossed it down to the crocodiles. There were only two of them down there, fighting over what was left of the woman. The other had returned to the river, dragging part of her with it.

The pieces of Alex’s shirt fluttered down onto the riverbank. “It may fool them,” Rahim said. “It may not. Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“I have a camp.”

Alex followed Rahim off the observation platform and away from the river, heading into the bush. He was alarmed to see that Rahim was limping badly and that the back of his jacket was covered in sweat. The man had a fever. Alex had also seen it in his eyes. He was a soldier of some sort, extremely fit. But he was also hurt. It was only willpower that was keeping him going.

Even so, they kept up a fast pace for the next fifteen minutes, finally arriving at a clearing dominated by a huge
Kigelia africana,
or sausage tree, with its strange black pods hanging underneath the branches. This was where Rahim had set up a makeshift camp. Alex saw a backpack, a few tins of food, and—at least this answered one of his questions—a parachute made of black silk, bunched up and tucked under a bush. A very sophisticated-looking gun was leaning against the trunk of the tree. It was a Dragunov SVD99 gas-operated sniper rifle, built in Russia but used extensively by the Indian army.

Rahim went over to the backpack and took out a spare T-shirt. He threw it over to Alex. “Here. You can wear this.” He opened a water bottle and drank, then offered it to Alex. Alex took a swig. The water was warm and tasted of chemicals.

“You were in Scotland,” Alex said.

“Yes.” Rahim had obviously been drained by what he had just been through. The sweat was pouring down his face and he was breathing heavily, fighting against the fever. Now Alex saw that one of his legs was bleeding. It was probably bandaged underneath his pants, but the blood was seeping through. He sat down and began to untie his shoelaces. He was wearing heavy combat boots.

“How safe are we here?” Alex asked.

“Not safe. The Kikuyu will be able to track us. Maybe McCain will think you are dead. But he is already nervous. He will not take any chances.”

“You’re hurt.” Alex handed back the water bottle. “What can I do to help you?”

“I was unlucky.” Rahim drank a second time. “I parachuted in last night.” Alex remembered hearing a plane. It had passed over the safari lodge, flying close to the ground. “I landed badly in a thornbush and cut my leg open. The wound has become infected. But I have taken antibiotics and I will recover. There is nothing you can do.”

“You’ve told me your name, but you haven’t said why you’re here.” Rahim didn’t reply, but Alex had already worked it out for himself. “You were at Kilmore Castle, so you must be interested in McCain.”

Rahim nodded.

“Who are you working for?”

Rahim took a deep breath and shifted his position. The movement caused him pain. “I know who you are,” he said. “You are Alex Rider. You are a part-time operative working with the Special Operations Division of MI6. They are looking for you. They have put out the call to every intelligence department, including mine.”

“But you didn’t come here looking for me.”

“I did not expect to find you here, Alex.” Rahim smiled, and at that moment Alex saw how very young he was, perhaps only twenty-three or -four. There might be less than ten years between them. “I was sent here for one reason only. It was the same reason that I was sent to Kilmore Castle, and this is now the second time you have got in my way. I am here to kill Desmond McCain.”

“Why?” There were so many questions Alex wanted to ask, and he was aware of time ticking away. The tribesmen could come looking for them at any time. But at least the rifle might put the odds more on their side.

Rahim took a plastic bottle out of his pocket. “I will tell you,” he said. He tipped two pills into the palm of his hand and swallowed them dry. He grimaced. “I am a spy like you, Alex. I belong to a division of the Indian secret service called RAW. It stands for Research and Analysis Wing, and it deals in counterterrorism, foreign affairs, and covert action. My own department goes further than that. Our activities often come under a single word. Revenge.”

“This is about the nuclear power station,” Alex said. “The one that McCain tried to destroy.”

Rahim nodded. “The Jowada facility in Chennai. We know that he bribed a man by the name of Ravi Chandra to carry a device into the building. It was a lamentable lapse in security, but the security at Jowada was in general a disgrace. Unfortunately, we were unable to question Chandra because he died in the initial explosion. McCain took a great deal of care. There were a number of connections between him and the man who paid Chandra, but we investigated, and in the end we found a link with First Aid. Suddenly everything made sense. Even so, we cannot prove the case against McCain, nor do we need to. Sometimes RAW deals with its enemies in a simpler and more direct way. I was sent to Scotland to kill him there, and I was checking out the castle when your car went off the road and into the lake. That was fortunate for you. And it is even more fortunate that I should be here a second time. That business with the crocodiles . . .” Rahim gave Alex the ghost of a smile. “I have never seen anything like that.”

“How were you going to kill him?” Alex asked.

“I was planning to shoot him, but as I discovered last night, that will not be as easy as I thought. He is well protected by his Kikuyus. However, I have come well prepared. I can also blow up his plane.”

“You have plastic explosive?”

“Of course.” Rahim gestured at his backpack. “McCain flies a four-seater 172 Skyhawk.”

Alex nodded grimly. “I know. That’s what brought me here.”

“I will blow it up in midair. In a way, that is the better option. It is part of my brief that RAW should not be seen to have been involved. A bomb, I think, will be more anonymous than a bullet casing.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to think again, Rahim.” Alex went over to the Indian agent and sat down next to him. His thoughts had already raced ahead. “I have to contact MI6,” he said.

“You want to let them know you are safe.”

“More than that. Do you have a radio?”

“I have a laptop equipped with a demodulator. It will produce a baseband output that can be picked up by satellite. Do you have an address?”

“No.” It only occurred to Alex now. Even after all the missions he had undertaken for MI6, they had never given him an e-mail address or a telephone number. On the other hand, he’d been supplied with gadgets. What had happened to the pocket calculator with the built-in communications system? It was a shame it hadn’t been in his pocket when he was snatched.

“It’s not a problem,” Rahim said. “We can contact the Intelligence Bureau in New Delhi. They will pass on any message to Liverpool Street. What is it you want to say?”

Quickly, Alex told Rahim everything that he had learned from Desmond McCain the night before . . . the genetically modified wheat crop, the spores, the plan to poison half the continent. “We have less time than you thought,” he said. “And killing McCain right now isn’t going to do anyone any good. We have to go up to the Simba Valley. It’s only two miles from here.”

Rahim shook his head. “I’m sorry, Alex. I don’t have enough explosive to blow up an entire wheat field.”

“That’s not my idea.” Alex was remembering what McCain had told him, and what he had seen for himself when he was flown in. “There’s a place called the Simba Dam,” he explained. “It’s on the edge of a big lake. If we could blow it up, we could flood the valley. We could put the whole crop underwater before it has a chance to do any harm. But we have to do it today. Right now. McCain said that the spores would start working at sunset. It must be about midday now.”