Snakehead

adder now! Ben stepped out and stared at him.
    “So here you are!” he exclaimed, shouting over the noise of the helicopter rotors. “We were getting worried about you!” He shook his head in disbelief. “What on earth are you doing out here? Where have you been?”
    “It’s a long story,” Alex said.
    “Has it got anything to do with the smoke coming from upriver?” Ben jerked a thumb. “We saw it as we flew in.”
    “That used to be a hospital.” Alex couldn’t hide his delight that things were finally going his way. “I’m really glad to see you…”
    “Mrs. Jones has been frantic. We knew you’d flown to Jakarta, but we lost you after that. She’s got people all over Indonesia, but she sent me to Darwin in case you made it across. I’ve been waiting there for three days, hoping you’d get in touch. You look terrible! Like something the cat dragged in…”
    “That’s how I feel.” Alex stopped. “What time is it, Ben?” he asked.
    Ben was obviously surprised by the question. He looked at his watch. “It’s ten past one. Why do you ask?”
    “We have to get moving. We’ve got less than twelve hours.”
    “Until what?”
    “I’ll tell you on the way…”

    Alex was feeling a lot better than he had in a long time. He was warm and dry and well fed, and all the dangers of the last few days had slipped away behind him. He was lying on a comfortable bunk in a military compound just outside Darwin, which was where Ben Daniels had brought him earlier that day. He was wearing combat fatigues, the only clothes Ben had been able to find for him. For the last few hours he had been left on his own.
    He could see a certain amount of activity outside the window. Soldiers crossing the parade ground, jeeps speeding in and out of the main gate. The helicopter was still sitting where it landed. Half an hour ago, a gas truck had pulled up and Alex had watched as refueling began. He wondered if it was significant. Maybe something was happening at last.
    Despite everything, he couldn’t relax completely. It was six thirty, and very soon the sun would be setting, at the same time moving into the alignment with the earth and the moon that Major Yu had been waiting for. At midnight, Royal Blue would be lowered to the seabed and detonated. The devastation would begin.
    And what were MI6 or ASIS doing to prevent it?
    Alex had explained everything…not just to Ben but to a whole posse of Australian army officers. His story was incredible, almost beyond belief, but the strange thing was that not one person in the room had doubted him. This was, after all, the boy who had dropped in from outer space. Alex supposed that where he was concerned, anything was now considered possible. One of the men was a technical adviser, and he had quickly confirmed what Major Yu had said. It would be possible to manufacture an artificial tsunami. From midnight onward, the fault line would be in the grip of enormous gravitational pressure. Even a relatively small explosion would be enough to trigger a global catastrophe, and Yu had all the power of Royal Blue at his command.
    Of course, in one sense Scorpia’s mission had already failed. Thanks to Alex, the intelligence agencies knew what Scorpia were planning, and even if everyone on Reef Island were killed in a freak wave, nobody would now think it was an accident. Alex assumed that the island would be evacuated anyway, just to be on the safe side. There was no longer any need for Major Yu to press the button. If he was sensible, he’d already be looking for somewhere to hide.
    There was a knock on the door. Alex straightened up as Ben Daniels entered. He was looking grim.
    “They want you,” he said.
    “Who?”
    “The cavalry’s just arrived. They’re in the mess hall…”
    Alex walked across the compound with Daniels, wondering what had gone wrong. But at least he was grateful he was still being included. MI6 had always treated him as a spy one minute, a schoolboy the next, dumping him out of the way whenever it suited them.
    The mess hall was a low wooden building running the full length of the square. With Daniels right behind him, Alex opened the door and went in.
    Most of the officers he had spoken to earlier that day were still there, poring over maps and sea charts that had been spread out over the dining tables. They had been joined by two men that Alex recognized at once. This was the cavalry that Ben had referred to. Ethan Brooke was sitting at a table,