Alex Rider 5 - Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780142405789
Publisher: New York : Speak, 2006.
Published: 2011-04-18T05:00:00+00:00

“You go through the metal detector,” Ramirez ordered.

“You got a metal detector? I thought this was a block of flats, not Heathrow Airport.”

The delivery man handed his helmet to Ramirez and, with the canvas bag over his shoulder, walked through the metal frame. The machine was silent.

“There you are!” he said. “I’m clean. Now can I deliver the pizza?”

“Wait a minute!” The fair-haired agent sounded threatening. “You forgot the Coke—and your promotions card.”

He picked the two items up from the reception desk and handed them over.

“Yeah. Thanks.” The delivery man began to walk towards the lift.

He had known he would be stopped.

Behind the wig and the black latex mask, Alex Rider heaved a sigh of relief. The disguise had worked. Nile had told him it would and he’d had no reason to doubt it. He had been careful to make his voice sound older, with an authentic accent. The motorbike leathers had thickened out his build and he was wearing special shoes that had added three centimetres to his height. He hadn’t been worried about his bag being searched. The moment he’d set eyes on them Alex had known that Lloyd and Ramirez were new to the game, with little field experience.

If they had taken him up on his offer and demanded to call the pizza company, Alex would have given them a business card with the phone number. But it would have been Scorpia who answered. If they had been smart, the two agents might have telephoned up to the sixth floor. But Sarah Foster—the owner of the flat—was away.

Her line had been switched from outside. The call would be redirected … again to Scorpia.

Everything had gone exactly as planned.

Alex had been taken from Malagosto to Rome, where he had boarded a flight with two Scorpia people he had never seen before. They had been with him at Heathrow, accompanying him through passport control to ensure there was no problem. How could there have been? Alex was in disguise—he had a false passport. And there seemed to be some sort of security alert at the airport—everyone was running around in circles. Doubtless it had been engineered by Scorpia.

From Heathrow he had been taken to a house in the middle of London, catching only a glimpse of the front door and the quiet, leafy road before he was whisked inside. Nile had been waiting for him there, sitting on an antique chair with his legs crossed.

“Federico!” He greeted Alex by the name on his fake passport.

Alex said little. Nile swiftly briefed him. He was given another disguise—the pizza delivery man costume—as well as everything he needed to break into Mrs Jones’s flat and kill her. How he got out again would be his problem.

“It’ll be easy,” Nile said. “You’ll just walk out the way you came in. And if there is any trouble, I’m sure you’ll cope, Alex. I have every faith in you.”

Scorpia had already reconnoitred the flat. Nile showed him the plans. They knew where the cameras were, how many pressure pads had been installed, how many agents had been commandeered.

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