Skeleton Key

His whole face contorted with pain and he staggered to one side, putting out a hand to stop himself falling. Juan started forward, entering the room with a look of concern. At that moment, Alex straightened up. His foot shot out in a perfectly timed roundhouse kick that slammed into the soft flesh of the man‟s stomach. Juan didn‟t even cry out.
    With all the breath knocked out of him, he crumpled to the ground and lay still. Not for the first time, Alex thanked the five years‟ training that had given him a black belt—first grade Dan—in karate. Now he moved fast. He took the sheet off the bed and tore it into strips. He tied the man‟s hands and feet, then gagged him. Finally, he slipped out of the room, locking it behind him. It would be hours before the guard was found. By that time he would be away.
    He came out of the barracon. The black limousines were still parked in front of the villa, waiting for the president and his men to leave. There was nobody in sight. Alex sprinted forward. Sarov had allowed him to wander around the grounds of the plantation, but only if he was accompanied. If anyone saw him without his guard, they might guess what had happened. He reached the edge of the house and stopped, breathless, his back against the wall. Even the short run had made him sweat in the intense heat of the afternoon. He examined the cars. There were three of them. The one that had left earlier that morning still hadn‟t come back. The question was, when the president went into Santiago, which one would he take? Or would all three accompany him?
    Alex was about to dart forward when he heard footsteps approaching round the side of the house.
    It was either guards or workers—the moment they turned the corner, they would see him. There was a narrow door to one side. He hadn‟t noticed it before. He fumbled for the handle.
    Fortunately, it wasn‟t locked. Just as two men in military dress appeared a few metres away, both armed, he slipped inside, closing the door behind him.
    The chill of an air-conditioning system brushed over him. He looked around. He was in a part of the house that looked completely different to the rest. Here, the wooden floors and antique furniture had given way to a hi-tech, modern look. Halogen lighting led the way down a short corridor with glass doors on either side. Intrigued, Alex crept forward. He came to the first door and looked inside.
    There were two technicians sitting gazing at a bank of TV screens. The room wasn‟t large and looked like an editing suite in a television studio. Alex eased the door open. There was no chance that the technicians would hear him. They were both wearing headphones, plugged into the machinery in front of them. Alex looked at the screens.
    Every room in the main house was under observation. He recognized at once the room in which he had woken up. There was the kitchen, the dining room, the main courtyard with two of the president‟s men strolling across. He turned to another screen and stared. He was watching himself swimming lengths in the pool. That had been recorded too. And there was Sarov, sitting with his glass of water while, on the screen next to him, the president gave his interview to the crew that Alex had seen arrive.
    It took Alex a moment to work out exactly what he was seeing. Everything was being recorded and edited. That was what the two technicians were doing now. The arrival of Boris Kiriyenko was playing on one screen. Next to it, the president emptied a glass of brandy, presumably the night before. On a third screen, the girls that Alex had seen at the swimming pool were introduced to him. They were simpering and smiling in low-cut dresses that left little to the imagination. Had he taken them to his room? If so, that would doubtless have been recorded too.
    An image flickered. And there was the president giving his interview. One of the technicians must have been given the footage taken by the woman in the drab green dress. Kiriyenko was talking directly to the camera in the manner of a thousand politicians on Newsnight or Panorama.
    Totally serious—although he looked a little foolish in his flowery shirt. On the screen next to this one, the same Kiriyenko swam in the pool with one of the girls.
    What did it all mean? Why did Sarov want this? Was the Casa de Oro nothing more than an elaborate, honeyed trap into which the president of Russia had unwittingly strayed?
    Alex couldn‟t stay there any longer. Everything he