Scorpia Rising

gardener. But nobody was interested in the view. They were all focused on Razim, turning over what he had just said.
    “Let me get this straight . . .” The man who had spoken was fair haired, dressed casually in jeans and an open-neck shirt. His name was Brendan Chase and he had once been the paymaster for ASIS—the Australian Secret Intelligence Service—until one afternoon when, after a drinking session, he had boarded a plane with four hundred thousand dollars of his agency’s money stuffed into his backpack. “Somehow you’re going to persuade MI6 to send Alex Rider on a mission. You’re going to make sure that the mission goes wrong and the boy is killed. Well, I’m with you there. If you want a volunteer, I’ll be glad to fire the bullet myself. You’re then going to blackmail them. We have all the evidence. We have the photographs and the recordings. We’ll make them public unless you persuade your government to send the Elgin marbles back to Greece. Is that about it?”
    “You have expressed it with perfect clarity, Mr. Chase.”
    “Okay. But this is what I don’t understand. How are you going to do it? These photographs, for example. Are you going to forge them? They’ll have to be pretty good if they’re going to stand up to examination.”
    “I don’t intend to forge anything.”
    “So how are you going to get the British secret service to play along?”
    Razim tapped ash onto the surface of the table. His fingernail was stained yellow with nicotine. “Any forgery is out of the question,” he continued. “We have to be cleverer than that. But actually I believe that it will be perfectly possible for us to arrange all the pieces on the board so that we control the entire game. At the moment, gentlemen, we have the upper hand. British intelligence has no idea of our intentions. And the truth is, they are a great deal less intelligent than they might believe. Alan Blunt has been in charge for too long. The same is true of his deputy, Mrs. Jones. We have extensive files on the two of them and I have been examining them closely. There are certain patterns of behavior. That is to say, they have become predictable. I think that it will be fairly simple to manipulate them. We will create a trap. And with a little nudging and pushing, they will fall right into it.”
    “Alex Rider is fifteen years old now,” Mr. Mikato said. He had taken out a handkerchief and was fanning it across his face. He eyed the cigarette with distaste. “As far as we know, MI6 is no longer using him. Do you really believe that you can persuade them to involve him again?”
    “Certainly.” Razim dropped the cigarette and ground it out on the wooden floor. “All we have to do is create the circumstances that will steer them toward that decision.”
    “I heard that he refused to work for them again,” Dr. Three said.
    “Alex Rider never had any real choice in the matter. He never intended to be a spy in the first place, but he’s been too valuable for MI6 to let him go. What this means is that we don’t actually have to go anywhere near him. If we provide them with the right sort of bait, MI6 will do our work for us. They’re the ones we have to target.”
    “What bait do you have in mind?” the Frenchman asked.
    Razim glanced briefly at Zeljan Kurst, as if asking for his consent. The bald head nodded very slightly.
    “It has to be done one step at a time,” Razim replied. “Our first objective is to get Alex Rider out of England and into a city of our choosing. Although he won’t be aware of it, he will be entering a hall of mirrors, as if in an amusement park. Every move that he makes will be controlled. Certain doors will be closed to him even as others open up. He will be watched from every angle. But as I say, we have to start with MI6. They are the ones who will draw Alex into our trap.
    “So let’s begin with the bait. Let’s say that a dead body is found floating in the River Thames in London. The body is that of a wanted criminal . . . a very important criminal. MI6 has been searching for him for some time. And in his pocket is a letter or some other document. Of course, it’s in code. MI6 sends it to their best scientists and they manage to work out what it means. That is when they discover that an event is taking place in some distant country and that it demands their urgent attention. It is something of world-changing importance. An agent must be sent there at once.”
    “It could be