Scorpia

and Ramirez downstairs, he was new to the job. He wondered why they had sent the lift up. Perhaps he should radio down and find out. Before he could make any decision, a boy with fair hair and death in his eyes stepped out. Alex Rider was holding one of the drinking straws that the two agents had seen but not examined. He had unwrapped it, and it was already between his lips. He blew.
    The fukidake—or blowgun—was another lethal weapon used by the ninjas. A needle-sharp dart fired into a major artery could kill instantly. But there were also darts that had been hollowed out and filled with poison. A ninja could hit a man over a distance of twenty metres or more without making any sound at all. Alex was much closer than that. Fortunately for the agent, the dart that he fired out of the straw contained only a sleeping draught. It hit the side of his cheek. The agent opened his mouth to cry out, stared stupidly at Alex, then collapsed.
    Alex knew he had to move quickly. The two agents downstairs would allow him a couple of minutes but then they would expect him to return. He grabbed the Coke bottle and opened it—not turning the lid but the bottle itself. The bottle came apart in half. Dark brown liquid poured out, soaking into the carpet. Inside the bottle was a package, wrapped in brown plastic, the same colour as the Coke. With the label covering most of it, the package had been completely invisible. Alex tore it open. There was a gun inside.
    It was a Kahr P9, double-action semi-automatic, manufactured in America. It was six inches long and, with its stainless steel and polymer construction, it weighed just eighteen ounces, making it one of the smallest, lightest pistols in the world. The in-line magazine could have held seven bullets; to keep the weight down, Scorpia had provided just one. It was all Alex would need.
    Carrying the canvas bag with the pizza, he went past the sleeping agent and over to Mrs Jones’s door. It had three locks, as he had been told. He lifted the pizza box lid and removed three of the black olives from the top, squeezing each one against a lock. The canvas bag had a false bottom. He opened it and trailed out three wires which he connected to the olives. A plastic box and a button were built into the bottom of the bag. Crouching down, Alex pressed it. The olives—which weren’t olives at all—exploded silently, each one a brilliant flare, burning into the locks. The sharp smell of molten metal rose in the air. The door swung open.
    Holding the gun tightly, Alex walked into a large room with grey curtains draped along the far wall, a dining table with four chairs, and a suite of leather sofas. It was lit by a soft yellow glow radiating from a single lamp.
    The room was modern and sparsely furnished; there was little in it that told him any more about Mrs Jones than he already knew. Even the pictures on the walls were abstracts, blobs of colour that gave nothing away. But there were clues. He saw a photograph on a shelf, a younger Mrs Jones—actually smiling—with two children, a boy and a girl aged about six and four. A nephew and a niece? They looked a lot like her.
    Mrs Jones read books; she had an expensive television and a DVD player; and there was a chessboard. She was halfway through a game. But who with? Alex wondered. Nile had told him she lived alone. He heard a soft purring and noticed a Siamese cat stretched out on one of the sofas. That was a surprise. He hadn’t expected the deputy head of MI6 Special Operations to need companionship of any sort.
    The purring grew louder. It was as if the cat were trying to warn its owner that he was there; and, sure enough, a door opened on the other side of the room.
    “What is it, Q?”
    Mrs Jones walked in. Approaching the cat, she suddenly saw Alex and stopped. “Alex!”
    “Mrs Jones.”
    She was wearing a grey silk dressing gown. Alex suddenly saw a snapshot of her life and the emptiness at the heart of it. She came home from work, had a shower, ate dinner on her own. Then there was the chess game …
    maybe she was playing over the Internet. News at Ten on the television. And the cat.
    She paused in the middle of the room. She didn’t seem alarmed. There was nothing she could do—certainly no panic button or alarm she could reach. Her hair was still wet from the shower; Alex noticed her bare feet. He raised his hand and she saw the gun.
    “Did Scorpia send you?” she asked.
    “Yes.”
    “To kill