Scorpia Rising

pit in his stomach as he took it down and opened it. What he read made it worse.
    We have Jack Starbright. If you want to see her again, come to the City of the Dead at 3:00p.m. this afternoon.The Tomb of the Broken Moon. Do not be late. Do not speak to anyone. If you call MI6, she will die. If you contact the school, she will die. If you are not alone, she will die. We are watching you now. We are listening. Obey these instructions or you will never see your friend again.

    Alex felt physically sick. The marble floor seemed to be shifting beneath his feet. Three o’clock! He looked at his watch. It was already after two. They had left him hardly any time . . . presumably on purpose. Despite that, he forced himself to slow down, to think this through. The wrong decision now could kill them both.
    He knew about the City of the Dead. They had actually been talking about it at school only a few days before. It was a vast cemetery in the north of the city, not far from the Citadel. The Tomb of the Broken Moon? He could find that when he got there. But should he go there at all? If he allowed himself to be captured, he would be no use to Jack. They might simply kill him then and there. After all, this was Scorpia he was talking about, and he had given them more than enough reason.
    But that didn’t make sense. If they wanted him dead, that would have been easy enough to arrange. They could have had someone waiting with a gun in the apartment. They needed him for some reason—perhaps the same reason that had drawn him to Cairo in the first place. This wasn’t about Cairo College. It was about him. If he walked into their trap, who could say what the consequences might be? But if he didn’t, Jack would die.
    He could get a message to Smithers. He still had the electronic notepad. But it wasn’t worth the risk. First of all, Smithers had been forced to abandon his home and might not even have access to his computer. And anyway, Scorpia might be able to intercept the message. He could ring England. He could leave some sort of written message here. But Alex had no doubt that the apartment would be thoroughly searched. It was probably bugged even now. The note had made it perfectly clear what would happen if he tried to disobey the instructions.
    It took him about fifteen seconds to run through all the options and to come to the only possible conclusion. He had to do what he was told. He had to deliver himself into Scorpia’s hands and hope that some sort of opportunity would arise further down the line. The one thing he wouldn’t do was put Jack’s life at risk. He remembered how she had insisted on coming with him on this trip. How he wished now that he had persuaded her to stay behind.
    He was already out the door and back down the stairs—and at least there was one piece of luck. The taxi that had brought him from Cairo was still parked outside, the driver talking on his mobile phone. Alex had snatched up another handful of cash before he left, and he banged a fist on the window, showing it to the driver.
    “The City of the Dead,” he instructed. “Can you take me there?”
    The driver nodded.
    “Do you know a place called the Tomb of the Broken Moon?”
    The driver’s eyes were still fixed on the money. “I know it.”
    “You can have all this if you get me there in half an hour.”
    The driver must have had enough English to understand, because Alex had no sooner got in than they were away with the back tires spinning and spitting up dust. He gazed out of the window, trying to assemble his thoughts. Why did they want him to come to a cemetery? Was there something ominous about the choice? Perhaps he should try calling someone after all, using Jack’s mobile. But that was too dangerous. It was always possible that Scorpia agents were following in another car. And the iPhone itself could be bugged.
    The City of the Dead, also known as the Northern Cemetery, lay sprawled out next to the Salah Salem Highway with lanes of traffic roaring past continuously, filling the air with fumes of burned rubber and gas. It really was a city in itself, dusty and crumbling, hammered by the sun. Ever since the fourteenth century, the Egyptians had brought their dead here, building not just tombs but miniature complexes with mosques, mausoleums, and even living rooms for relatives who happened to visit. The wealthier the family, the more elaborate the complex, with high brick walls and arched doorways leading into courtyards