Scorpia Rising

house at all. It was an old paddle steamer, like something out of another age, permanently moored on the sluggish brown water of the Nile. The boat was three levels high, painted white, with two huge paddles at the back and a single funnel close to the bow. At some time it had been converted into a gaggle of jewelry shops, each one built into the old cabins and staterooms. A gangplank led up from the quay. Its name was written in gold over the entrance on the main deck.
    “What now?” Jack asked.
    “We wait,” Alex said.
    They found a little park with trees shading them from the sun and sat down on a wooden bench, tucked out of sight. From here they could see everyone entering or leaving the boat. Alex looked at his watch. It was five to five.
    “I should come with you,” Jack said.
    “No. It’s better if you stay here. If anything happens, you can call for help.”
    If anything happens. Three small words. But Alex knew how easily they could tear his life apart.
    And then another taxi drew up and Erik Gunter got out. He had on the same black suit that he wore at school with a small backpack on his shoulder. He paid the driver, then made his way over the gangplank and onto the ship. Alex didn’t hesitate. He was already on his feet, following, leaving Jack behind. And with all his attention focused on the head of security, he didn’t notice the gray Chevrolet that had been parked in the street, on the other side of the park. Nor did he see the two men who had been sitting inside it, watching the paddle steamer just like him. But they saw him.
    “Hey—that kid. Quickly. Get his picture.” The man spoke with an American accent.
    “Why? What do you—?”
    “Just do it.”
    The second man raised a Nikon D3 digital camera and pressed the button, capturing Alex as he reached the gangplank, as he stepped on it, as he began to climb. “What are you interested in a kid for?” he demanded sourly.
    “I know who that kid is,” the first man replied. “And you’d better get ready. It looks like we’ve got trouble.”

    Erik Gunter made his way through the House of Gold, squeezing through the tourists and local visitors who crowded out the narrow passages. There were shops and stalls on both sides of him with jewelers standing outside, some of them wearing the dark red Egyptian fez, like magicians about to do card tricks. There was jewelry everywhere: the same necklaces and brooches that hung in every souk in Cairo. Little pyramids on chains, Egyptian hieroglyphics, lucky cats, scarabs, portraits of Queen Nefertiti and King Tutankhamen . . . thousands and thousands of different pieces on sale, all of them overpriced, half of them fake.
    Gunter stopped beside one of the stalls. Immediately the owner, a fat little man, was onto him. “What you want? I show you the best. I make you the best price.” But Gunter ignored him. There was a mirror on the counter and he reached out and tilted it, as if examining himself. But in fact he was looking back the way he’d come, over his own shoulder. And there he was, skulking in the doorway of an antiques shop about fifteen yards behind him . . . Alex Rider. Gunter almost smiled to himself. It was just as he had said. This fifteen-year-old whiz kid from British intelligence wasn’t quite so smart after all.
    The trap was set. Everything was in its right place. Now all he had to do was finish it.
    He continued forward until he arrived at a doorway with a CLOSED sign—the one place on the paddle steamer that wasn’t ready for business. He rang a bell and waited. There was a buzz and the door clicked open. He paused for a moment, then went in.
    The shop sold antique weapons. There were hundreds of them, spread out on shelves and in glass cases, hanging from the walls on hooks. Gunter ran his eye over swords and sabers, flintlock pistols, old army rifles and muskets, daggers with huge jewels set in the hilts. It was an interesting collision, he thought. Beauty and death. All these weapons had once been used by armies or nomadic tribes. The blades had severed flesh and bone. The guns would have cut down men, women, and children, sending them crashing into the sand. And now they were being sold as ornaments to hang in people’s houses. Gunter wouldn’t have been able to live with them. He knew too well the truth about the pain that these things brought.
    An old man, an Egyptian, had appeared behind the counter: round glasses, thin face, an old-fashioned wing collar and