Scorpia

would have been impossible, even for the country’s entire police force and army. But they were looking for something that had to be high up and in plain view. The clock was ticking but it could be done.
    Every satellite dish in London was noted, photographed, authenticated and then eliminated from the search. Whenever possible, the originalplanning application was found and checked against the actual dish itself. Telecommunications experts had been called in and wherever there was any doubt they were taken up to the relevant floor to see for themselves.
    If people were puzzled by the sudden buzz of activity in apartment blocks and offices, nobody said anything. The few journalists who started to ask questions were quietly pulled aside and threatened with such ferocity that they soon decided there were other, less dangerous stories to pursue. Word went round that there was a crackdown on television licences. And every hour, across the city, more technicians poked and probed, examining the dishes, making sure they had a right to be there.
    And then, just after ten o’clock on Thursday morning, six hours before Scorpia’s deadline, they found them.
    There was a block of flats on the edge of Notting Hill Gate with amazing views over the whole of west London. It was one of the tallest blocks in the city – famous for both its height and its ugliness. It had been designed in the sixties by an architect who must have been relieved he would never have to live in it.
    The roof contained a number of brick structures: the cables for the lifts, air-conditioning units, emergency generators. It was on the side of one of these that the inspectors found three brand-newsatellite dishes facing north, south and east.
    Nobody knew what they were for. Nobody had any record of their being placed there. Within minutes there were a dozen technicians on the roof and more circling in helicopters. The cables were found to lead to a radio transmitting device, programmed to begin emitting high frequency terahertz beams at exactly four o’clock that afternoon.
    Mark Kellner took the phone call at 10 Downing Street.
    “We’ve done it!” he exclaimed. “A block of flats in west London. Three dishes. They’re disconnecting them now.”
    Cobra was still in session. Around the table there was a murmur of disbelief that swelled in volume and became a roar of triumph.
    “We’re going to keep looking,” Kellner said. “There’s always a faint chance that Scorpia put other dishes in place as back-up. But if there are any others, we’ll find them too. I think we can say that the immediate crisis is over.”
    At Liverpool Street Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones were also told the news.
    “What do you think?” Mrs Jones asked.
    Blunt shook his head. “Scorpia are more clever than that. If these dishes have been found, it’s only because they were meant to be found.”
    “So Kellner is wrong again.”
    “The man’s a fool.” Blunt glanced at his watch.“We don’t have much time.”
    Mrs Jones looked at him. “All we have is Alex Rider.”
    Alex was on the other side of London, a long way from the satellite dishes.
    He had been picked up outside Bank Station at the agreed time the night before – but not by car. A scruffy young woman he had never seen before walked past him, whispering two words as she went by, and thrusting a tube ticket into his hand.
    “Follow me.”
    She led him into the station and onto a train. She didn’t speak to him again, standing some distance away in the carriage, her eyes vacant, as if she was nothing to do with him. They changed trains twice, waiting until the last moment as the doors slid shut and then suddenly stepping out onto the platform. If anyone were following them, she would see. Finally they emerged at King’s Cross Station. She left Alex standing in the street, signalling for him to wait. A few minutes later a taxi pulled up.
    “Alex Rider?”
    “Yes.”
    “Get in.”
    It was all done very smoothly. As they moved off, Alex knew that it would have been impossible for any MI6 agents to have followed them. Which was, of course, exactly what Scorpia had planned.
    He was taken to a house – a different house to the one he had visited when he first arrived back in London. This one was on the edge of Regent’s Park. A man and woman were waiting for him, and he recognized them as the fake Italian parents who had accompanied him through Heathrow. They led him upstairs and showed him into a shabby