Scorpia Rising

up.”
    “What?”
    “You heard what I said, Franklin. Right now, the House of Gold is on the bottom of the Nile. And this kid was there—”
    “I had nothing to do with it,” Alex said.
    “Shut up!” Fair Hair snapped out the two words.
    “What are we going to do with him, Lewinsky?” Franklin, the black man, asked.
    “We’re going to take him to the bell room.”
    “Whoa!” The driver was unhappy. “We can’t do that!”
    “We don’t have time to talk about this,” Lewinsky snarled. “And we’re not going to talk about it in front of him. We need answers to questions and we need them now. So let’s take him down and get on with it.”
    Down? They were already in the basement. Alex didn’t like the sound of this, the way things were going.
    “You’re making a mistake,” he began.
    “Save your breath,” Lewinsky said. “You’re going to need it.”
    Alex felt a hand shove him in the back and he was propelled toward an elevator. The driver pressed the button and the doors slid open at once. The elevator was a steel box. It was like walking into a refrigerator. The four of them bundled in and they were carried down. Alex was trying to quell a rising sense of panic. Too much had happened in the past hour—the discovery of the dead man, the explosion, the way he had been kidnapped in broad daylight. He had no idea who these people were or what they wanted. And what was the bell room?
    But more than anything, he was desperately worried about Jack. He had sent her chasing after Erik Gunter. Right now, he needed to warn her about what he had seen on the boat. She needed to know the danger she was in. And it might well be that she had heard about the explosion. If so, she would be sick with worry herself. The least he could do was tell her he was still alive.
    “I want to talk to Jack,” Alex said.
    “Who’s Jack?” Lewinsky asked.
    “She’s a friend. She looks after me.”
    “What? You mean she’s like your nanny?”
    Alex ignored the taunt. “I have her mobile number.” There was no response. “I just want to let her know that I’m okay,” he said.
    Lewinsky smiled unpleasantly. “What makes you think you’re okay?”
    They had traveled some distance underground. Alex could feel it in his stomach and in the sense of weight pressing on his shoulders. The doors of the elevator slid open to reveal a short, windowless corridor leading to a single wooden door at the end. Somehow Alex knew he didn’t want to find out what was on the other side. But he had no choice. Franklin and the unnamed man had already left the elevator. Lewinsky laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and propelled him forward.
    He walked down the corridor with a sense of dread, a long shadow stretching ahead of him. Franklin opened the door. It led into a large room that was indeed shaped like the inside of a bell, round with bare brick walls that narrowed as they rose at least two floors above his head. Alex didn’t like anything he saw. The room had no windows and was lit by a single bulb dangling on a wire. The door was soundproofed. The floor was covered with a thick rubber mat. In the middle there was a wooden chair and to one side a narrow table that had been constructed so that one end sloped downward. The table had three leather belts and Alex could see at once that they were meant for him: one for his ankles, one for his stomach, one for his shoulders and arms. There was a bucket and a tap. The room had been designed for one purpose. There was no escaping it. It screamed at him everywhere he looked.
    “Take a seat.” Lewinsky gestured at the chair.
    “I’m okay standing.”
    “You want to quit wisecracking and do as you’re told? I can make this much, much worse for you.”
    “Why don’t you tell me who you are?”
    Franklin and the other man exchanged a look, but Lewinsky didn’t blink. “You’re the one who’s going to answer the questions,” he said. “Now sit down!”
    Alex went over to the chair. He sat down and watched with a mixture of curiosity and disgust as Lewinsky leaned down and pulled off Alex’s damp socks and shoes. Meanwhile, Franklin closed the door. Lewinsky straightened up and stood in front of him. Alex’s clothes were sticking to him. His bare feet dangled over the floor.
    “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. “What were you doing at the House of Gold?”
    “What do you think I was doing?” Alex replied. “I’m a schoolboy. I go to the Cairo College of