Scorpia Rising

Scorpia?” Alex asked. He didn’t know why he had said that. The name had just dropped into his head.
    “I don’t know, Alex, old chap. They haven’t told me. The good thing is that nobody knows you’re here in Cairo. At least you’re safe.”
    “You mean, he’s safe until someone tries to blow up the school,” Jack growled. “Then he’ll be right in the middle of it.”
    “What exactly am I meant to do?” Alex asked. His face brightened. “And what gadgets have you got for me, Mr. Smithers? I’m sure you’ve got an exploding camel or something.”
    Smithers shook his head. For once, he was completely serious. “This is a very unusual situation,” he said. “And we have to be careful. All we know is that the school is a target and a lot of young lives may be at stake. Imagine if the whole place were taken over by armed criminals. Such a thing has happened before, you know. Or suppose some of these teenagers were taken prisoner . . .” He pulled out a list of ten names and laid it flat on the table. “For what it’s worth, these are the ten wealthiest students at Cairo College.”
    Alex glanced at the names. The third one down was Simon Shaw. He was the blond-haired boy he’d met on his first day. “I know him,” he said. “He was in the swimming pool.”
    “His father is Richard Shaw. He owns about half the gas stations in Australia.” Smithers took the list and folded it away. “Don’t be fooled by the fact that the son is living in an apartment just like you,” he said. “A lot of these young people don’t want people to know how rich their families are.”
    That was an interesting thought. Perhaps Alex wouldn’t be the only person at Cairo College with secrets to hide.
    “We have to examine all the security systems in the school,” Smithers continued. “Put simply, Alex, we need to be sure that it’s safe. What about members of the staff? Are there any teachers with drinking or gambling problems? Now that I come to think of it, my old history teacher suffered from both. But we want to know about anything that could open them up to blackmail.
    “And then there’s this chap Erik Gunter. Now, I’ve seen his file and I find it hard to believe that he’s turned bad. He took six bullets for his regiment while he was in Afghanistan. He spent nine weeks in the hospital recovering. He has no criminal record of any sort. But at the same time, he is their new head of security and it can’t just be a coincidence that he’s turned up now. That’s where you should concentrate your efforts. We want to know everything he’s up to. Who he meets, how much he spends . . . even what he has for lunch.”
    Smithers had brought a small attaché case with him and he opened it. The first things he took out were a pair of rather chunky sunglasses and a bright red plastic water bottle, the sort of thing sportsmen might use.
    “These work together,” he explained. “Everyone at Cairo College carries water—and you can pour about a quarter of a liter in the top part of this bottle. The equipment is concealed in the bottom part. It’s new technology, Alex, and highly classified. What it does is it uses people’s mobile phones against them. Point the bottle in their direction and you’ll hear everything they’re hearing. The speakers are inside the handles of the dark glasses and go behind your ears. But it’s better than that. You can actually activate mobile phones at a distance of up to fifty meters and turn them into bugs. Two teachers having a conversation in the yard? You’ll hear every word they say.”
    He took out what looked like an ordinary plastic light switch. “This is the same design as all the light switches at Cairo College,” he explained. “You can stick it on any wall—there’s a resin on the back and nobody will notice it’s there . . . one more switch among so many. It doesn’t actually turn anything on or off, of course, but it’s got a highly sensitive listening device inside and you can use it to hear through walls. Again, it’s connected to the glasses.
    “Finally, if you want to communicate with me, use this.” He produced an old-fashioned notepad and a ballpoint pen and handed them to Alex. Both objects felt slightly too heavy. “Anything you write or draw on this notepad will appear instantly on my computer screen,” Smithers said. “Scribble down SOS and I’ll be on my way. I’ve taken a house in the middle of the city, by the way, just off