Scorpia Rising

entrance to the kitchen and looked inside, wondering what had happened. That was when Jack tiptoed forward and hit him on the back of the head with the iron bar, using all her strength. The man grunted and fell sideways. Jack made sure he was really unconscious, then turned and ran for the car.
    All sorts of thoughts were going through her mind. Should she have taken the guard’s rifle? Could she make her way through the fort, find Alex, and take him out with her? No—that would be too dangerous. Right now, she had the element of surprise, but the moment she tried to start a fight, Razim would outnumber her by a factor of about twenty to one. She hated leaving Alex behind, but she remembered what he had said beside the lake. Better one of them out than neither of them. The town of Siwa couldn’t be too far away. She would get there and come back with reinforcements . . . the local police, the army, whatever. And the moment Razim heard the car leaving, as soon as he had found out what had happened, he would stop whatever he was doing and come after her. Alex would be all right.
    She got into the car, closing the door softly behind her so that it made no sound. There was nobody guarding the gate. It was open with the desert and a single track stretching out beyond. This was somehow all too good to be true. Would the car start? She turned the key and the engine purred into life. Nobody shouted at her. Nobody came running.
    What about the mines? Razim had said there was a defensive circle all the way around the fort. But she remembered his words. They were turned on only if he believed he was under attack. She would just have to hope for the best. There might be other tire tracks she could follow through the sand.
    Hang on, Alex. Help is on its way.
    She pushed the car into first gear and moved off.

    It took the television screen several seconds to warm up. Alex found himself looking at a black-and-white image that was so fuzzy, it could have been shot at night. At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Julius Grief was leering at him, waiting for him to work it out. Razim was standing to one side, resting the remote control in his palm. Alex thought of closing his eyes, of looking away. Whatever these two freaks were trying to show him, it couldn’t be good. But then he realized what was happening and knew that he was trapped, that it was already too late.
    There must have been a camera hidden somewhere high up in Jack’s cell. Jack had her back to him, but he could see her attacking the bar of the window with the knife she had taken, cutting into the brickwork. Alex still didn’t know why they were doing this, what they wanted. But as he watched her, Razim began a soft, mocking commentary.
    “So it would seem that your friend Miss Starbright stole a knife from the breakfast table this morning. That was very bad of her. But shall I tell you a little secret, Alex? I had an idea that she might. In fact, I rather wanted her to. And she didn’t disappoint me.”
    On the screen, Alex saw the bar fall out of the window.
    “And there you are,” Razim continued. “Who would have thought that someone as careful as myself would put your friend in a cell with a metal bar just waiting to come loose? And how foolish of me to dismiss the guards who usually patrol the prison block, leaving her free to wriggle out. What could I have been thinking of?”
    Alex was beginning to see where this was going. All around him, the machines pulsed and flickered and the needles began to twitch. Julius Grief was grinning, still clutching the black plastic box that Razim had given him.
    “Now look at that! She’s out! She’s free. And despite all the noise she’s made, nobody has heard. I wonder if anyone has left a car for her, to help her get away?”
    There were other cameras outside. Alex saw Jack look into the kitchen, then continue down the passageway where a third camera picked up the main courtyard with the waiting Land Rover.
    “Just one guard,” Razim crooned. “We didn’t want to make this too easy, did we!”
    “You wanted this to happen.” Alex wasn’t sure how he found the words. There was a terrible crushing feeling in his chest, as if he was being scooped hollow.
    “Of course. We were using a long-range listening device when you were at the lake this morning. Why else do you think I let the two of you walk alone? It might amuse you to know that the technology was almost exactly the same as that